Aurora Borealis

Well, where to start?  He’s been more willing recently to try out sounds.  He’s started saying, “Go!” pretty clearly to get The Dog to go away from the table; unfortunately, she doesn’t really listen to his sweet little voice.  At therapy today he worked on 2-word sequences — verb and noun (like “roll ball”) — with pictures.  His therapist reported he did start getting frustrated. 

A while ago, at our old house, we tried a refrigerator lock to keep him out of the fridge.  We followed all the installation instructions, let it “cure” a full 24 hours before engaging it, etc.  The first time the Agent yanked on the refrigerator door after the lock was engaged, he flat out broke it.  We got a different lock, and finally got around to installing it the other day.  Shortly after we started engaging it, Mr. Tldz reported: “The good news is Agent Murphy won’t break the new lock.  The bad news is he knows how to operate it.”  So now he routinely opens and re-locks the lock for us when we need to get stuff out of the fridge.

These days, when Mr. Tldz puts a meal on the table, he sends Agent Murphy down the hall to the bedroom to tell me it’s ready.  He looks at me expectantly, and when I ask if lunch or whatever is ready, he says, “Yeah!”.  He had been running down the hall ahead of me, but in the last day or two he’s decided that he must take my hand and walk me down the hall.  My sweet little escort.

In a very exciting development, Agent Murphy seems to be heading down the path of potty training himself.  The other day the babysitter reported that he had indicated a desire to go into the bathroom.  So she put his seat up on the toilet and he peed in the toilet.  Today she reported that he did that three times this morning.  Aunty N. took him to speech therapy today, and when he got home, Daddy commented that he probably needed his diaper changed.  I asked Agent Murphy if he wanted to go potty.  He said, “Yeah,” so Daddy took him into the bathroom.  Daddy came back and reported that the Agent peed in the toilet, and that his diaper, which was last changed nearly 2 hours before, was pretty much dry; it may have been very slightly damp.  Then, when it was time to get ready for bed, Agent Murphy peed on the toilet again, and his diaper was dry again.  What a big boy!

I know it can be harder to get a kid to poop on the toilet, but hopefully if this keeps up, once we get settled in with Garbanzo and can actually focus on toilet training a little bit, maybe this will come together.

The baby furniture arrived today promptly as scheduled.  It’s really nice!  This afternoon Mr. Tldz moved the couple of existing pieces of furniture in there around, so now we have the room set up as we want it.  Now we just have to put diaper supplies away and wash clothing and blankets, etc. and put all that away.  And set up the baby swing, car seat, etc.

We’re getting ready for you, Garbazno Bean!

We ate outside tonight and it was lovely.  Sunny with a nice breeze.  Good to be out of what feels like my hermetically sealed bubble.  Agent Murphy enjoyed tooling around on the deck in his Cozy Coupe.  There was some rainwater in the car’s storage compartment (which Daddy later dumped out), and the Agent had found the end of a branch that still had a few leaves attached to it.  He was dipping the leaves in the water and sprinkling it around the deck.  Could be good practice for a future priest for doing the renewal of Baptismal promises.  Hmm…

Got to watch our resident cardinal flitting around in the woods at the back of our yard tonight, too.  I like our cardinal.  We had a resident cardinal at our old house, and I’d been missing him.  We lived here for a while before I saw this one.

Aunty N. took Agent Murphy to speech therapy yesterday, his first time since May 3 — the day before this bedrest saga started.  His therapist says the break may have done him good, because he did really well.  We went back to an hour-long session instead of two 30-minute sessions.  He got a good 45 minutes in.  Miss L. says we should work particularly on the S sound, the W sound, and the H sound this week.  (We’re supposed to pinch his nose when working on S, because apparently yesterday he was trying to inhale instead of exhaling to make the sound.)  He just recently got a kittens book that he likes — it’s just pictures of a bunch of different kittens with their names.  And there are a lot of S sounds in the names, so that will help.

Today Mr. Tldz offered Agent Murphy a choice of animal crackers or gold fish for a snack.  The Agent indicated goldfish.  Mr. Tldz said “fish” a few times, and then Agent Murphy said it once.  Mr. Tldz said he heard all the sounds.  So the little guy is definitely on board with trying more.

As for the potty…  My plan had been to make a pretty intense effort at toilet training in May-July to see where we’d get by the time Garbanzo arrives.  Well, obviously that plan has changed, since I can’t really be chasing after the Agent and cleaning up accidents these days.  So we’re continuing with a low-key approach.  We still have his step-up potty seat in his bathroom, and he likes to sit on it.  He sits on it after bathtime every night, and a few times Mr. Tldz has been pretty sure that Agent Murphy has peed in the toilet.  And this morning the babysitter reported that the Agent indicated a desire to sit on the toilet, and then he peed!  Hooray, big boy!  Hopefully if we can just keep going at this level, once we get settled in with Garbanzo Bean at home finalizing potty training will come relatively quickly.

We sat on the front porch for a while this afternoon and watched the heavy rain come down.  Then Agent Murphy got to play with some toys from the special shelf, on top of his bookcase.  Tonight he played with Rufus, the stuffed red wolf (He was a table decoration at the wedding of Mr. Tldz’s groomsman.), and Hildegard, the stuffed German Shorthaired Pointer that we got because that’s The Dog’s breed and Hildegard looks a lot like The Dog.  Rufus and Hildegard seem to be pretty cozy with each other.

Agent Murphy kept pointing between Hildegard and The Dog and saying, “Yeah” or “Uh huh.”  Point to Hildegard’s head, point to The Dog’s head.  Point to Hildegard’s back, point to The Dog’s back.  Point to Hildegard’s ear, point to The Dog’s ear…  I wonder how long the likeness will keep him fascinated? It was cute.

And we read and re-read lots of books today.  Lately the Curious George board books have been very popular, but today we were quite into Once Upon a Potty until Mommy said I needed a break from pee-pee and poo-poo.  Row, Row, Row Your Boat was big today, too.  The Agent has been more willing to make and immitate sounds lately.  He says “Row row,” though it usually sounds more like “Woe woe.”  And he’s adding to his animal sounds — his standard “Aarrr” for a dinosaur, and now he has an impressive lion’s roar, and he barks like a dog and AT his dog, and he’s trying to quack like a duck, which sounds like “Kak kak.”

We’ve had our occasional babysitter in every morning this week from 8-12 to look after Agent Murpy.  Originally that was so Mr. Tldz could work and now it’s so he can job search, etc.  She’s been taking him to the playground for extended periods each day and he’s been running himself ragged so he takes a good nap.  That’s a very good thing.  Now he’s decided outside is just the place to be and that he’s supposed to go to the playground every day.  When he’s not at the playground, he wants to be on the swingset in our backyard or riding his little car around the deck.  I hear him out back playing with Mr. Tldz now.

Unfortunately the babysitter is leaving town for a few months due to some personal stuff she has going on.  But we’ve hired a graduating (tomorrow) high school senior for the summer to come in 4 hours a day during the week and look after the Agent.  We’ll start with 8-12 and shift her hours as we need to in order to accommodate any interviews Mr. Tldz gets.  AS starts on Monday.  (Acutally, she watched him for about an hour on Tuesday afternoon because Mr. Tldz had scheduled a phone meeting with his boss; but that took a different turn — that’s when he learned his position, and really his group, is going away.)

Anyway, things continue to be stable with me and Garbanzo Bean, as far as we can tell.  And I’m managing to keep myself reaonably occupied.  I haven’t gone insane yet!  (At least not anymore than I already was.)  We made it to 30 weeks 4 days.  I really want to get to 35 weeks and then see how close we can get to 37.

The guys just came in.  Mr. Tldz reports that Agent Murphy did a good job calling his dog by name.  He patted his leg (the sign for dog) while saying “Aaah.”  Apparently they went down to the bottom of the stairs where she was and she barked at them.  So the Agent barked back, which caused The Dog to whimper. 

Mr. Tldz and I got engaged 4 years ago today.  How different life is now!  In those 4 years we’ve planned a wedding, gotten married, had a baby, lost a baby, sold and bought a house, and now we’re growing another baby.  Wow!

Okay, so I’ve set up a care calendar to organize help with meals and other needs that we have.  I’m just figuring this stuff out — 1) how to fully use the calendar and 2) what our needs realy are.  But I’ll be updating as we go along and figure out more.  The calendar ID is 39695 and the security code is 2762.

Many, many thanks to all those who have already stepped up to help and who have shared the calendar with other potential helpers.   And thanks especially for your prayers for Garbanzo Bean!

Your prayers for the health of Mrs. Tldz and Garbanzo Bean are greatly appreciated.

Yesterday we learned that Mrs. Tldz will be on bedrest for the remainder of her pregnancy. She is currently at the hospital for observation. We do not know, at this point, whether she will be able to come home before the birth of our newest child. That birth will likely be before the July 25 due date as a way to manage some wrisks associated with Mrs. Tldz’s condition.

We have reached out to a number of you already and we are grateful for the support that you have provided us. We will continue to reach out as we work our way through the next couple months or so.

We spent a couple of hours at the festival hosted by the local preservation trust at the park up the street.  We had a fresh squeezed lemonade and brought a bag of kettle corn home.  We snacked on it (and Agent Murphy decided he likes it) and then took a late nap.  So the Agent will get to stay up a little late tonight, which is fine because we’re going to church in the evening tomorrow for Miss L.’s Confirmation rather than the morning.  Perhaps we’ll finish the kettle corn while watching some Matlock or something tonight.

It’s a nice little festival.  The carnival rides don’t interest us or Agent Murphy at this point, but maybe someday.  And they had a nice selection of craft/boutique vendors.  We brought home some local honeys and barbecue sauces.  And we got one of the souvenir posters, which is cute and whimsical and I think will go well in the kids’ bathroom, which could use some sprucing up.

Agent Murphy got to sit on the front of a fire truck (of course our camera battery turned up dead when we got there) and we took him to the little petting zoo they had.  He pet a boa constrictor, some ponies, some goats, a sheep, and a rabbit.   We also saw a large brown tortoise that seemed really interested in finding a way out of the fenced area.  There was a llama being anti-social and a little pig that was busy eating, with its head hidden.  Agent Murphy seemed like he really wanted to pet the little ducklings but he couldn’t reach them in the pen they were in.  One of the workers tried to catch and hold one for him, but they were having none of it.  I think the Agent enjoyed it, though he seemed a little overwhelmed by the number of people in that really small area.  We’ll have to look for other petting zoo opportunities, maybe on off-peak days that might be a little more conducive for him.

On the way to the car we ran into someone I went to school with at Oglethorpe.  She was with her husband and 5 kids, and they live pretty close by; so we’ll have to try to look them up.