The Small Family   

What a crazy (and good) week it has been! First of all, a BIG congratulations to my nieces Sam and Noelle, who both graduated this week. Sam graduated from high school and will be starting Sacramento State (Chris’s and my alma mater for our M.A. degrees) this fall—she’s planning to study interior design. And Noelle “promoted” from junior high and will be starting high school in the fall. Congratulations to both of them!

Sam officially graduated on Wednesday, so my Mom and I went out to dinner (a grown-up meal!) and then to the graduation on Wednesday evening while Chris and Theo had some guy time. Sam’s graduation was at 7pm, which is getting toward Theo’s bedtime, so it made more sense for him to skip the event. I’m told he and Chris walked over to Kohl’s to do a little shopping for Chris and watched a few innings of a baseball game before Theo took a bath and retired for the evening. Meanwhile, Mom and I had a delicious dinner and dessert and then had fun getting to see Sam’s big night!

Earlier on Wednesday, my friend Janeane came over with her daughter, Emma, for some playtime. Theo is getting ever more interested in Emma. For a long time he just regarded her with quiet curiosity, but this time I noticed him reaching out to pat her shoulder or back a few times, which was interesting to me because Theo’s usually not much of a “touchy-feely type”—he usually keeps more to himself. But more and more lately, I’m seeing him reach out and gently touch other kids, like in the play area at the mall, so I think he’s getting progressively more sociable. Don’t get me wrong—he was certainly never a reclusive baby or anything like that! He just tended to keep more to himself, so it’s interesting (and pleasing) to me to see that he’s seeming to reach out more to other kids. I have such great friends that add so much to my life, and I’m hoping Theo will eventually be a fairly sociable little guy in his own way so that he, too, will have some close friendships as he grows up.

Anyway, Emma and Theo wore each other out, which was nice for both Janeane and I, as both kids took naps after their play date...always a good thing! That was actually Theo’s second play date of the week, though. On Tuesday, he had a short play date with Grandma Diane while I went to get the last of my stitches out. (Clean bill of health from the dermatologist! Turns out I’m at a bit of a higher risk than normal for skin cancer so I need to watch things, but at this point none of the moles they removed had yet developed into cancer—they were just “atypical.” Whew! Now I just watch and go back if anything starts to look funky over the years to come.) Theo, as usual, took his grandma on a walk to Starbucks for coffee (for her) and a pastry (for them to share), and then they went over to PetSmart to look at the birds and the fish, which Theo loves. (In fact, the little turkey recently put up quite a fuss when it was time to leave the fish display at Walmart. Yikes! Too young for tantrums!! Ack!)

Friday afternoon Theo and I went out to meet my friend, Kim, at Starbucks. More a “play date” for me than for Theo this time, but he quite enjoyed pushing chairs around and getting to nibble on a bit of cookie while Kim and I chatted. And then Friday evening, Chris and I took him over to BJ’s (local brewery/pizza place/restaurant) for dinner and then for a stroll around an outdoor shopping center that was having an art show. Dinner was good but exhausting—Theo wasn’t so much in the mood to sit in his high chair, so he was wiggling all over...and then proceeded to try to eat a coaster. (We figured it was harmless for him to play with, until we discovered that it was mere cardboard...and he was eating it!) Walking around at the shopping center/art show was more relaxing, as there were plenty of dogs for Theo to look at. He got particularly excited by a puggle that walked by. Any pug or pug mix, and he goes nuts! I think he recognizes them as looking like his dear friend, Luna.

Saturday, Chris, Grandma Diane, Theo, and I headed down to Elk Grove to Sam’s graduation party at my sister’s house. Chris and I were slightly apprehensive, since sometimes Theo has a tendency to sort of freak out when there are a lot of people in a small area...and there were quite a few people coming. But, we got lucky. Theo was in a good mood and had a great time walking around and investigating all the fun stuff to see at Auntie Lynnie’s house. Yes, you heard me—walking. Go figure. Theo took his first steps nearly two months ago, but 90% of the time has preferred to crawl since then. Every so often he will spend a day doing quite a bit of walking and then go right back to crawling the next day. So it remains to be seen whether the same thing will happen again, but he sure was walking a lot at Auntie Lynnie’s house!

He also desperately wanted to play with my sister’s dog, Roxy, a long-haired Chihuahua. Alas, Roxy was banished to the outside for the afternoon because she’s extremely nervous around people and tends to bark at anyone and everyone nonstop. So, Theo had to content himself with standing at the sliding-glass door out to the backyard, chattering at Roxy. (I would’ve taken him outside to see her, but Roxy can be quite unfriendly, and no one trusts her around a baby. She’s not the most baby-friendly dog on the planet.)

Sunday was Chris’s company picnic, which was held at a Rivercats (minor-league baseball team) game. It was perfect for us because they had a big reserved lawn area with lots of room for Theo to crawl around. Mr. Sociable was once again sociable, which was great! At one point, he crawled away from Chris and I and made a beeline for Madelyn, one of Chris’s coworkers who Theo has seen a couple times, but never really “met.” He pulled himself up on Madelyn, grabbed her hand, and walked over to a picture-drawing area with her and her daughter, Magdalena. It was like he was saying, “Hey, you seem nice. Come with me! Have you seen this drawing area over here??” At the game, Theo also had his first taste of BBQ pork (a tiny bit—he seemed quite impressed!) and a Merlino fruit freeze (a somewhat popular treat here in the Sacramento area).

Theo is such a big helper lately. It’s really fun, actually...even though naturally his “help” makes everything take twice as long! Early this week, I heard an unmistakable click come from his room—the sound of a lid on a plastic bin being snapped open. “He can’t possibly have gotten that storage bin open,” I thought (clearly forgetting his cleverness with stroller buckles, high chair buckles, and the like). Sure enough, he had unsnapped the ends of the lid, cast said lid aside, and climbed in a storage bin of too-small or winter clothes that were ready to go out into the garage in case we ever have a need for baby boy clothes again. And, in typical Theo fashion, he decided that the neatly folded clothes inside ought to be re-sorted and strewn all over his room. You’ll see pix in this week’s album. For some reason it cracks me up every time he “helps” me sort laundry, because he furrows his little brow in such concentration as he examines each item of clothing and throws it into the correct pile (that is, the pile that makes sense in his little Theo brain—I have yet to figure out his sorting criteria, but he clearly has some!).

Along with Theo’s gift for sorting, he has also developed an obsession with the garbage can. We have one in the office (among other places), and he will spend forever throwing away his toys and then retrieving them from the garbage. Now, there’s often only paper in that trashcan, so often it’s no big deal if he wants to retrieve things from it. But sometimes there’s a Starbucks cup or something drippy in there, and then obviously it makes quite a mess (and is rather gross). So we solved this problem by turning the garbage can lid around so Theo can’t open it. He’s rather puzzled and irritated by this new development, but I’m sure he’ll figure a way around it soon. (And yes, the Starbucks-cup pictures from this week are of a cup he retrieved from the trash. People who knew me in my previous life as a germaphobe are probably gasping that I actually took the time to take pictures of this, rather than snatching the cup away from him. Oh, how things change when a mama is too darn tired—or amused—to worry much about germs!)

And in our continuing language explosion around here, Theo now signs for milk when he wants it without being prompted (unfortunately, he wants it a LOT—and we’re trying to cut down a bit on that and reserve it for naps and bedtime) and asks for a “bop” verbally...which is his word for “bottle.” (It’s funny—he walks around happily going, “Bop! Bop!” when he wants one.) He also signs “more” now, after only being shown it once—amazing! I need to find/implement some more signs—he picks them up so well!

That about wraps up this week. Next week, you can look forward to fun pictures of a pug meetup and a trip to San Jose to see Grandma Kathy, Grandpa Tom, cousin Nik, and co. However, since we’re going to San Jose on Sunday and will probably get home late, no promises on whether I’ll have the blog up first thing Monday morning...it might be slightly later than usual if we get home late.

Enjoy your week, everyone!