Tam's iPad

We got in the car yesterday  to head to the beach.  In the backseat, besides the kiddos, is a plethora of toys, cars, books, and pacifiers.  I've pretty much given up on keeping tabs on all the odds and ends that have found homes between the carseats back there.

Tam crawls into his seat, and pulls out the doodlepad.  It is like this one...you know...the kind that you can write on with the stylus and wipe off with a tug on the knob.  I haven't seen him play with this since, oh, March.

Tam places the doodlepad in his lap and then announces...
"Here's my iPad, Mama!"
"Look I'm drawing on my iPad!"

I look at Brian and burst out laughing!  I guess our latest gadget in the house has made quite the impression on our 3.5 year old.

Now, Tam isn't allowed to play on any of the computers yet without supervision, and computer time is usually limited to about 30-60minutes after super and before bed. And he loses computer privileges if naughty behevaior emerges. All and all, I don't feel like he is connected to the devices by an umbilical cord or anything.   I just didn't think that the iPad had been so mind-boggling to him...especially the drawing/ paint programs.

To me, I usually enjoy our mom-Tam time on the ol' technology machines.  He crawls in my lap and we have fun playing the games together....some are just for fun, like wielding a sling-shot to smack down errent cows.  Others are educational, like sliding letters into words or testing memory with matching cards.   And others are drawing programs that let Tam and me, together, make masterpieces...Sometimes.  (A few times, Tam wants to do it all himself 'cause he's a big boy).

Makes you wonder where we'll be with all this "smart" computers in another 3 years, 5 years, 10 years!

Scored at the GR Mom sale last weekend

 Last Saturday, I hit up the Mom 2 Mom Sale.  I've been going to this biannual sale for the past couple of years.  However, this time the sale was being held at a venue downtown rather than up in the Northwest corner of town.  Because it was going to be closer to my house and because Jude gets us all up around 6am, I volunteered to help with registration between 6 and 8am.  The perk for volunteering was that I could shop before the door officially opened, so between 8 and 9am.

This was awesome.  Getting downtown at 5:45 meant that I got free meter parking for the morning (score).  It also meant that there was no other traffic on the road to drive me crazy.  I got to meet wonderful moms who were selling great things at great prices...I met them early, prior to them going crazy with the selling to other moms.  AND I got to buy without having to push my way through tons of other moms to get to the tables of clothes.

There were tons of tables, but as usual, for every 1 boy table of stuff there were 3 girl tables of stuff.  I guess boys are just so much harder on their clothes, which makes them hard for re-sale.  Some how, I still managed to find roughly 45 pieces of clothing and shoes for the boys at roughly $1 each. I hit several real cute outfits for this summer for Judo and I had to guesstimate shoes for him (I tend to guess large, luckily).  For Tamlin, I hit a booth selling size 4, 5, 6 clothes, especially cordory pants (without holes!).  And, even though it was tough, I refrained from buying too many items for my niece 'cause I've been sewing for her at home too. 

I didn't see too many toys that I thought the kids would like or that we didn't already have something similar.  I need snag a few books and a play laptop.  These little things will be great toys to pull out during our upcoming car trip / camping excursion.

Lastly, I saw my favorite local cloth-diaper seller.  She was having a mega-sale because she was selling the business.  Just recently some of the big box stores like Target have begun selling cloth diapers, which means she was getting less business.  I'll miss her in the diaper community for her cltoh diaper knowledge, but I totally loved getting a few of my favorite Thirsty diapers at a lower price.  I swept up some covers, an all-in-one, and  a swim diaper for little Jude.  I'm really hoping that it is warm enough to do some swimming in a few weeks  :-)

By 11am, I was done and ready for an afternoon nap.  I told Brian that my yard sale addiction might be sated for awhile after this splurge.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

For participating in a technology workshop at work, I got an iPad2. 
It has a pink cover :-)

It is smarter than me.
Tamlin was able to use it instinctively with its touch-screen technology.
I'm deathly afraid of breaking it because it is so thin and so lightweight.

But I'm having a blast figuring it out!

More ipad info here.

Now I want an iphone so that my iPad has someone to talk to.

iPad play

Jude and me

Jude's Birthday, part 3

I couldn't let this momentous occasion pass by without noting some of Jude's latest accomplishments and reflecting on our past year together as a four-member family :-)

So what has Jude been doing lately?
Working on standing without support.  His current "hang time" all by himself is about 5 seconds.  However, hs has been trying to stand with only holding on to something or someone with only one hand.  First steps will be coming soon!

Along with standing, he has been walking around while pushing items, like the play walker, the toy piano, and now the big red car and tricycle.  Most of the time he can keep up...though sometimes, if he stops, and the toy keeps going due to momentum, he forgets to let go and ends up crashing to the floor.  Tears are shed, but he tries again.  He really likes it when he can cruise all the way across a room.

Jude has also been testing out gravity with his own little experiments.  These have involved dropping objects from high places to see if they fall.  He has two laboratories for this: the highchair and his crib.  While in the crib, he likes to drop all of his toys and blankets and books outside the railing when he first wakes up and no one comes running immediately to see him.  In the highchair, he has taken to dropping his sippy cup when he is done drinking and dropping his spoon when he is done eating.  I've picked them up for him, to have him look me right in the eye and drop them down again (with a sly grin).  Silly kid. Oh, and Jude hasn't figured out the coordination to actually use the spoon yet, he just likes to wave it around during mealtimes.

Speaking of highchair antics, our little Jude is definitely an eater!  He loves solid food.  He loves to eat.  If he sees anyone else putting things in their mouth, he crawls right over to investigate and beg for a bite.  He has enjoyed every food we have placed in front of him, including spicey chicken wing meat.  He really likes being able to feed himself with the small bits of food and has even started rejecting (halfheartedly) the pre-made baby food mush that has to be fed to him.  I can't wait until he gets some teeth and can try even more awesome food.  Brian also loves that Jude tries everything he makes for us.

With Jude's increase in mobility and independence, he is exploring the house a ton.  This meant that all of our baby-safety features are back out (like the outlet covers and the baby gates).  When Jude crawls out of a room, we say that he is off on an adventure!  With all of this exploring, we are tying not to keep telling him "No" all of  time.  This means that a few Jude rules have emerged:
"Hats stay on the head" - this one goes for Tamlin too, especially during the summertime sunshine.
"That's not a Jude toy" - Tam tries this one too when he doesn't want Jude to touch his stuff.
"That's not food!" - This one is utter far too frequently during the day, but Jude has started listening.  If we catch him before the item in question has entered the mouth, Jude will usually put it back down.  However, with his short attention span, he often re-discovers that the item is still in his hand and tries again to see if it is food.

And the sounds!  Jude is a lively talker!  He makes car motor-sounds when he's playing with the cars.  He says mamamama, and sometimes it is even in reference to me.  He says dadadadada too.  He kinda says a prolong Hi when waving.  And then there are lots of yayayaya, babababa, squeals, giggles, and yells.  Even with the lack of words, there is a variey of pitch...especially when one of us is singing at him.

He's still taking 2 naps on most days and sleeps from 6:30 to 6:00am most nights.  There are still rough nights where he doesn't want to sleep by himself.  Jude is definitely a snuggler and loves to be with people.  I think if he had his way, he would sleep in someone's arms every night instead of sleeping by himself in the crib.  Brian coddles him with this desire.  I tend to think that if it is bed time, he should be in the crib, even if he is crying (and I know nothing else is wrong). However, most nights we are all sleeping enough.  It is cute to watch him sleep all curled up clutching the little monster I made him for Christmas and on top of a board book.

Still no teeth, but way less drool overall compared to Tamlin.
He drinks 18 to 24oz of formula a day from sippy cups.  He hasn't figured out straws yet.  We plan on switching to milk after our vacation in a few weeks.
He's eating 3 meals a day, and lots at each meal, the little food vacuum.
We still get spit-up from him, but not too much.  He's been off the reflux medicine for months and seems fine.

Jude loves playing with Tam when he can; he loves books that have flaps to lift up; he loves making noise by banging objects together; he likes cars and animals...at least I think he does.  It is so fun to watch his personality emerge with every new day!

Oh, I love my littlest man so much!  He surely does make my heart feel super happy!

Jude's Birthday

 My little boy turned one year old last week!  Where did the time go?  Has it really been 365 days that I have been able to spend snuggling my little baby Jude?  It does seem like only moments ago Brian and I were off to the hospital to help this little guy into our world.  I think I blinked and he went from a wiggly little bundle to a squirmy little toddler.

He is growing up so fast!  I'll have to dedicate the next blog entry to just update how many accomplishments he has been tackling lately :-)

Anyways, on May 17, Jude and Tam woke up nice and early at 6:30am. Sigh.  Jude got to wear his new birthday shirt I whipped up for him.  Oh, he's number one!



We were letting Jude open his larger gifts here and a saving the few smaller ones for when we are with family in a few weeks.  Because they were a bit larger in size, I couldn't really wrap the gifts with paper, so I creatively wrapped them with blankets.  

As soon as he walked down the stairs, Tamlin noticed the blobby blanket lumps and asked about them.  Despite a couple of peeks, he was a very good boy and was (mostly) willing to wait and let Jude unwrap them.  After breakfast we let Jude (with lots of Tam's help) unveil his birthday gifts.

 Yeah!  A new car garage!  And it is as big as Jude is!
This nifty garage was picked up a few weeks ago from a mom sale. I know we have other garages, but this one has such a wide base that I knew it could withstand Jude using it for standing support without tipping over. Plus its large size lets both boys play with it at athe same time with pretty good tolerence.

Tam quickly showed Jude how everything works and how to send cars flying off the ramp.  Jude picked up on this rapidly and has since also sent cars flying down the ramp.


We also pulled out a couple of toys that Tamlin had outgrown ages ago but would be perfect for our little Jude now.  We had them stored in the basement, so I dug them out, washed them down, and blanket-wrapped them for birthday morning.

The little red car was from the Aunts and the wooden tricycle was from Brian's parents.  We got Jude to sit on both of these toys, but he isn't quite coordinated enough yet to make them go.  However, he LOVES being pushed on them.  We have already toted the red car outside to be used in the driveway.
Tamlin does remember these toys and has also taken to riding them around when he thinks he can get away with it.  He tends to say that he is showing Jude how to make them go.  Sigh.

 Jude was quite fascinated with the wooden tricycle.  He kept checking out all the little details...
making sure the tires turn...
drooling on the seat...
trying to make the bell ding, or at least trying to pull it off the handle...
tugging on the streamers...
and laughing like a maniac on how cool it was!

 After opening this gifts, I had to jet off to a wetland course...so it wasn't until Saturday that we finished celebrating Jude's big day with the cupcakes.

Oh, and then Jude got a special delivery in the mail...

Jude received a big box from his grandparents in Mars.  We let him open it all by himself while big brother was taking a nap.

So both the box and the packing peanuts fascinated Judo...
He would have been completely happy with both of these simple items as his birthday gifts.

Eventually, he did let us delved deeper into the box to find his presents.  Both Brian and I helped him with undoing the wrapping paper (though Jude's attention would wane and he would attempt to eat the packing peanuts repeatedly).

The box held some great clothes for Jude to wear this summer, including a nice light-weigh jacket for those cooler summer evenings.

And there was a fun play birthday cake!  It lights up and sings songs and lets you blow out the candles.


Jude thought this was AWESOME...even better than the wrapping paper or the packing peanuts. 

He loved randomly smacking the buttons to get it to sing to him and to watch the candles light up.  He also loved trying to eat the candles :-)

 Thanks Grandma Margie and Grandpa John!

(Of course, Tam thinks it is pretty cool too.  He also loved his gift of car stamps!)

Happy Birthday, Jude!