IrishOboe

Things I’m thankful for in no particular order:

1. “A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench.”  Isaiah 42:3
2. A husband who listens well
3. A communicating toddler, alive and well at 16^th months today!
4. A healthy baby, alive and kick’n
5. A clean house
6. Grandparents who delight in their grandkids
7. The end of the drilling project 5 meters from our front door

My notes aren’t so well organized and I missed several events in the past month or so, guests over, family outings, and other good times.  We are so thankful for the close friends and family we have here and for their love and support.

22^nd: Joseph says “ma” along with his perfect sign for “more.”  Cracker is “kaka”

25^th: We went to the library and the toy library today.  Joseph loved both.  We came home with a Fisher Price workbench for 2-Fr for a 4-week loan.  I think toy libraries are a great idea.  Do we have them in the states?  Or are people too afraid of germs?

26^th: Joseph says pear, plum, wolf, and can name all the farm animals/pictures on his memory cloth cards (rooster, hen, house, tractor, pig, sheep, cow, dog, cat, goose, etc.).  I can tell which memory card he is holding based on what he says, but it took some time.  I doubt anyone else (besides Stephan) could get more than a few.  He signs and says bread, but it can also mean peanut butter.  He signs help, play, potty (but he doesn’t use it enough!), and banana, to name a few – it’s getting hard to keep up!

-Mom sent me the bear that she gave me when I went off to college.  She re-loaded it with hugs and Joseph knows it.  Now when he wants a little Mommy time he brings the bear to me and we sit down and take turns hugging the bear and having a group hug.  He also comes to me for kisses if he’s fallen and hurt himself.  I know have the magic kiss!  (And so does Stephan.)  We only got the bear yesterday, but already today when Joseph was particularly upset about a bump and taking longer to calm down I asked if he wanted to go get his teddy and have some hugs.  He stopped crying, went to the other room (sniffling) and brought the bear back for hugs.  I asked him once and in a very normal tone of voice and speed.  It is amazing what he understands.  It’s time to stop thinking we can talk about all kinds of things in front of him and assume he doesn’t understand!

13^th: Joseph has two 2-year molars breaking through. 

-He moves his index finger (right hand) back and forth and hisses at the back of his tongue to sign that he wants to brush his teeth, which he has to do every morning when Mommy brushes hers.  We brush his teeth with paste every night, but maybe he knows better.  In any case, he now gets it twice a day, once with and once without paste.

-We took a walk wearing no diaper and split pants we got from China (curtsey of Stephan’s coworker).  Well, I wore normal pants, but I also didn’t pee in on the sidewalk.  It was embarrassing.  He didn’t give me any sign, just started peeing after we’d come up out of the underground passage that goes under Seetalstrasse.  At least he didn’t pee in the tunnel!  Split pants work, though . . .

That was Joseph’s first time crossing under and over the street.  I let him go where he pleased, with proper traffic instructions, of course.  He had a grand time!

-Joseph knows the names of all the farm characters on the cloth memory set that Gotte Diana gave him.  He can say something similar for all of them, but when asked, he can find whatever you ask for.  We did get a video!  Up in the usual places (though most of you have seen this already).

-Joseph makes a beautiful sign for food now – it’s exactly right!

-I like to take Joseph for walks where he’s free to roam (off the main street).  Once we took a 1 ½ hour long walk and he walked the whole way!  (I’m too pregnant to carry him far.)  He needed some coaxing and encouragement to make it home, but he did it!

16^th: Joseph says “bushi” (which means baby in Basel German) when pointing to my belly.  He says “I’m a whale” which is a line from one of his books.  He points at one of the German library books and says “bagger” which sounds a bit like “kaka” but it’s clear what he wants (it’s a construction book).  She says “shoes” and “socks” which sound like “shish” and a short “ah” respectively.  The first thing he does when he comes out of the bedroom is go directly for his shoes saying “shish” and asks me to put them on.  He wares them all day and would go to bed with them if he could.

17^th: Joseph adds “tongue” and “baby” to his vocabulary.  Baby is particular clear.

-Joseph is a fish!  He’s been jumping off the side (from sitting) and into the water for a while without trouble now and I’ve started guiding him to the steps (underwater) and letting him crawl out.  He does well and asks for it frequently.  Soon I’ll try letting go a little before his hands reach the steps so he has to swim a bit to get there.  He can run all around the baby pool and does well when he falls.  He can do the slide by himself (belly down, feet first) and stop himself before his head goes under water.  Today he walked up the slide holding on to the edge and fell and ended up on his back.  His face was still out of the water, so I let him struggle a bit.  Unfortunately at one point in the struggle his face went in and he got a big breath of water.  Usually he recovers quite quickly, but this time I almost started to panic, but before it even looked like he was back to normal breathing he was back at walking up the slide again!  He has no fear!  That’s good – and bad.  I’m happy he loves the water and doesn’t freak out when he gets some water, but shouldn’t he learn his lesson?  I learned once again that often his cries are not over the accident, they’re over his purposes being frustrated  - so he wants to try again!

18^th: Joseph signs “please” now (both hands brush against his tummy sideways), which is lovely before he’s started saying “na na” for “yes please” and it sounds awfully close to “nei nei” which means no.  If I’m not sure what he wants and say “If you want it please say ‘yes please Mama’” and he says “na na” I then tell him that sounds like “no” and to please say “yes please” at which point he’ll either do the real sign for “please” or his old sign (hands clapping, or index to palm).  This is a great improvement to thinking he’s said no and then getting cries of frustration when we don’t give him what he’s thought he’s said “yes” to!!

-Today after I Swish+Swiped the bathroom Joseph tore off a bit of toilet paper and rubbed the toilet seat and lid before tossing it in the toilet – just like Mommy does!

-New trick found!  If he doesn’t want to eat (why doesn’t he want to eat?) if we give him a fork to eat with suddenly all his food becomes edible.  He loves every kind of food, the trouble is, it varies on the day, so I have no idea what he’ll eat at any given time.  He favorite food one day is detestable the next, the food he spurns today he’ll gulp down tomorrow.  What’s up with that?!

-We still do our Bible readings mostly consistently after lunch, which is when the BCP has us read part of Psalm 113 to start.  We’ll tell him we’re about to praise the Lord now and he’ll come to sit in our laps and will put his hands in the air saying “praise the Lord!” (I can’t transliterate yet).  Every time in Psalm 113 we say the word “praise” I raise his arms enthusiastically.  Sometimes he does it on his own.  In any case – he loves it!

-His favorite bedtime book is “Goodnight Moon” and when we talk about the “quiet old lady who was whispering ‘hush’” he always turns around and puts his face close to mine (since I always whisper the ‘hush’ close to his face).  Tonight Daddy was reading the story to us and when the time came Joseph sat up and put his face nice to his and a burp came out!  We’re no good at controlling our laughter, but Stephan’s much better than I am!  I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve – I think I’ll have to adopt Barbara’s “Just because I’m laughing doesn’t mean I think it’s funny” line.

19^th: Joseph likes to carry his potty to the toilet to dump it out.  This makes me nervous, but he’ll have to learn sometime!

-It’s been mentioned on the videos, but Joseph loves “In the Night Kitchen” in German (we only have it in German).  He has three favorite phrases from it that he says over and over throughout the day.  Picture teenagers quoting moving lines to each other – he loves quoting with us!  He goes “aaaaaahhh” for “Ruhe da unten” and “ti ki tiii” for “kikerikii” (rooster crow) and “mi, mi, mi, mi, mimmhhh” for “Milch, Milch, Milch für den Kuchenteig.”

-EC is hit or miss.  He doesn’t say when he needs to pee or poo we just have a good clue when he needs to poo and some clue if he needs to pee and we’re paying attention.  He does sometimes say he needs to go (and we can tell) but often it’s as he’s going or just after.  Anyway, I hope to be more consistent with the new baby and see things don’t go better.  Still, we’re glad for what we’ve done.  Wouldn’t it be lovely if he got the idea down before the baby came . . . ?

-Today after swimming he tripped when walking to the stone stairs and bust his lip on the lower step, poor thing.  After some blood and tears all was better again.

-I can’t keep up!  He fills in the last word “hot” in his Monet book “This garden has a shady spot for reading books when the day is . . .”  He says “apple” in the right place for “The Hungry Caterpillar” and he’s making other connections.  I think that’s why he’s started asking for the same book over and over again . . .

-The alphabet song doesn’t have anything to do with letters to him.  He loves the alphabet sign book PJS gave him and once each Stephan and I tried to sing the song while doing the signs.  He got a very serious look on his face – to him, that song means he has to stop what he’s doing soon and do what we want him to!

28^th: I realize that Joseph signs “train” and “siren.”  Both come from the “Baby’s First Noise” book that Grossmutti gave him (and where “airplane” was learned).  I wonder how many other signs he does that I haven’t recognized yet.  I wonder with words as well.  My observation skills are lacking and I don’t know how to train them!

7^th: Joseph consistently says “may” with a short vowel (rhymes with “re”) for “mommy milk.”  That’s a good word to have!  He’s walking more and more and while he still crawls, he will mostly choose to stand up and walk somewhere rather than crawl.  He knows most of his face parts and likes to point to them on himself or me when I name them.  He says “eye” fairly well.  When I show him bits he always tries to say the last one I’ve shown.  It’s so cute!  Try “California” or “ring-tailed lemur” with a 15mos old tongue! 

10^th: Joseph goes from sitting to standing with a shoe in each hand (one knee to standing without support).  Joseph still LOVES books.  The main reason why he fusses in the day is because he wants me to start reading or doesn’t want to stop reading.  I now have a spot on the couch where I sit and when I sit there he can bring me books to read.  He scrambles off my lap the moment a story is finished and rushes to find another one.  Then he brings it to me with the quick in-out breathing of one very excited little boy!

He says “wow” when he’s peed on the pot – in imitation of my enthusiasm, of course.  He walks to the bathroom, lifts the lid, flushes (he can reach on his own now) and lower the lid softly.  He still doesn’t tell us often when he needs to go – or we haven’t figure it out yet.  Today (12^th) he said “banana” for pot, but because he used the same word as banana and the bananas hang on the same bit of furniture the pot is (don’t ask) I didn’t realize he wanted the pot until – well, you know.

On the 8^th we finally found shoes that will fit his feet.  It’s getting cold and wet here and even I won’t let him out barefoot.  They’re pink, but he loves them anyway.  Two days later as we’re getting ready to go out and I don’t know where his shoes are I ask him to go find them for me.  To my surprise (why does it still surprise me how smart kids are?!) he remembered that in the morning he’d been playing with them and had brought them into the office.  He looked at me and thought a bit, then marched right into the office and picked up a shoe and brought it to me!

He knows “belly-button” in German.  I was reading the body-parts book to him and when we got to the belly-button he lifted up his shirt and stuck his finger in his belly button!  Daddy’s around enough for him to know a good bit of German!  Stephan reports he knows “eye” in German as well, but he knows plenty more than that!

12^th: Last night Joseph slept from 8:30pm to 6am without needing anything: no songs, no breast, no nothing.  Wow!  I woke up plenty, but how nice to just worry about myself!

Today we had another swimming date with birthday-buddy A.  Joseph became positively hyper, kicking and moving his arms in the big pool and then exploring all over the kiddy pool.  He’s getting good about keeping his head above water when he falls from standing and then getting back up again.  It’s hard to watch him and know the right amount of intervention.  Often he can fall and even have his face get submerged without any trouble.  But sometimes he doesn’t hold his breath in time.  He’s still alive so far . . .

I can’t keep up with all the new things he can and does do.  He’s really taking off!  It’s such a pleasure to be his mommy.  We’re still learning about “no” and obeying, but he has made so much progress!  When we go for walks and he walks down the wrong path I can call him back again and he obeys – not without some hesitation, but I’m pleased that he often makes the decision to obey.  It must be such a struggle between doing what he wants and choosing to listen to Mama.  If he needs a little time to make that decision, I’m happy for him to have it when it’s not critical, and he can tell by my voice when it’s really dangerous.  I think I’m okay with the idea that learning to obey immediately  comes gradually and can be better enforced with an older understanding.  It’s funny, though.  Whether he behaves well in public or poorly I’m frustrated that it’s not a true representation!  We had coffee at our pastor’s house the other day and Joseph obeyed us right away when we asked him to shut the drawer he’d discovered.  He shut it and went to something else and the pastor and his wife were very impressed.  Stephan and I were quick to point out that that doesn’t always happen that way . . .

I recently mentioned that Dr. James Schall failed in only one book recommendation so far, but that is not wholly true.  I run into a few jems while reading “The Habit of Being” (the letters of Flannery O’Connor) which is why it is still my bathroom reading.  I came across a quote I’d like to share because I identify with it, but I’m sharing it mostly because I know my mother will identify with it even more than I do.  It’s worth mentioning as an aside the lost art of letter writing.  The book is nearly 600 pages long and not nearly all her letters were published.  The lady she is writing to here is a dear friend she met through the mail and hardly ever got to see in person, and yet they shared at the deepest level.  Sometimes I yearn for the days before Facebook, email and cell phones!  “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink” comes to mind.  But on to the quote:

“After the interview with the Time man I am very much aware of how hard you have to try to escape labels.  He wanted me to characterize myself so he would have something to write down.  Are you a southern writer? What kind of Catholic are you? etc.  I asked him what kinds of Catholics there were.  Liberal or conservative, says he.  All I did for an hour was stammer and stutter and all night I was awake answering his questions with the necessary qualifications and reservations.   Not only will I look like Bishop [the idiot child in her novel “The Violent Bear it Away” and a reference to the photos the Time photographer took] but will sound like him if he could talk.”