Mainly Robert’s Development

OK, before I lose my chance I’m gonna journal!! 
I’m at work, in the NICU Stepdown unit, and they’re talking about combining my patients back into the NICU room… so that would mean I’d be amongst other nurses, families, etc. and probably couldn’t take the time to journal. 
WHERE TO BEGIN??  I haven’t journaled about Robert’s development in so long, I’m sure I’ve missed writing about many an important stepping stone.  So let’s see here…
We had his BIRTHDAY PARTY on June 5th!!  I know, I know, it was WAY after his birthday, but April and May were just too busy, or I was working weekends, etc and June 5th was the first good Saturday to do it.  We had it at the YMCA toddler pool and invited lots of his friends (he doesn’t even really have lots of friends, but he’s got some!!)  And probably 10 adults and 10 kids did show up!!  That was great.  The toddler pool at the YMCA is fabulous with play equipment (like a slide and water squirties, etc) right in the middle of the pool.  Unfortunately it was kinda crowded on the day of his birthday, so lifeguards certainly did NOT have our party in their sights. In fact, Robert figured out how to unlatch the gate to the pool and he ended up wandering right out into the pool area numerous times!!  I would all the sudden go, "Where’s Robert?!" and inevitably would find him meandering around the big pool just looking around.  No lifeguard ever noticed.  I would go FLYING Out of our party zone to go get him!!  The funny thing was, even though we had a good turnout of adults and kids, I never got a chance to sit down and schmooz with any of them.  I was just running around chasing Robert!!  Actually, he just wanted to be in the pool, so that’s where we spent most of the time.  People that came to the party: Jen and her 3 kids from acrross the street, Anne (our tenant) and her 2 kids, Sarah (an RN I work with) and her 3 kids and her hubby, and then we had a little boy come who’s Mom was killed in a car accident about 6+ months ago.  He’s 2 and his dad is military.  So the dad and the grandpa are now raising the little boy on their own.  It ocurrs to me that I may have already journaled this.  Hmmm…  I wonder.  Anyway, did I mention that he was really good-looking!!  Covered in tats, tall, etc.  I think I have journaled this.  Dang it! 
So let’s do development!! 
Let me just go thru an average day and think of what he does and where he’s at with everything!  He still prefers to go to sleep in our bed, but then he gets transferred to his bed and he stays there till he wakes up for good in the morning.  Even if he kinda wakes up in his bed, he just rocks himself back to sleep (usually with his head burried in the pillow – his back and butt up and rockin!)  In the morning, he comes to my bedside and says, "Mama!" and then tells me, "Down!" meaning he wants me to get down (even tho I’ve barely cracked open an eye!)  The other day, he got frustrated with how slow I was going (or not going) and he said, "GET DOWN NOW!!!" and he meant it!!  Sheesh!  Then if I say, "you want me to get down?" He’ll respond, "OTay!"  and I’ll say, "Alright" and he’ll say, "awwight!"  (still as cute as can be!!)  He likes to watch a movie in the morning, and since we still don’t have any TV stations, I’ll put in a show for him.  Lately his fave movies are, Monsters, Inc. (but already he’s moving on from that one), Toy Story and Toy Story 2, Bee Movie, Iron Giant (old Disney that I have on VHS!!) and he REALLY likes that one.  He talks about Robots a lot, and even mimics Robots saying, "Beep Beep Beep" and moving his arms kinda stiff!!  It’s hilarious!, oh and one of his favorite new movies is Horton Hears a Who.  It’s a Dr. Seuss movie with Jim Carrey playing a couple of the main characters!!  Ok, so he gets his movie while I make coffee, straighten the kitchen (if need be) and wake up!!  Then I try to get ready for our walk/climb up Rattlesnake Mtn.  He’s always interested in going for the walk.  He USED to insist on pushing the strolller up the driveway, but lately he finds other things that interest him and he just walks behind me.  (with me going, Robert, come on now!  Keep walking!!)  When we get to the street I have to load him in the stroller and for the most part he’s been VERY cooperative and lets me put him in and buckle him up.  Once in a while he wants to run up to the tenants’ kids’ stuff and mess around, so I have to chase him outta there!  On our walk he likes to either throw rocks over the side of the mountain, or pick up sticks and branches and use them like swords, or giant claws.  He KNOWS to stay away from the cactus pokeys!!  Oh, and since Mother’s Day, he does like to pick Daisies if they’re there.  So I’ve now broght back a couple of little bouquets of daisies from our walk, and put them in water in our kitchen window and seen new flowers open up for weeks afterwards!!  In fact there’re some on our kitchen window ledge right now!  We have always liked to look for lady bugs but there haven’t been any for the last month or so.  We do look for bunnies, snakes and birds cuz we’ve seen them all before.  Then he’ll be done on the top part of our walk and we’ll leave the private driveway and start heading down the hill where he’ll find any number of reasons to head back into the natural area (apart from the street/driveways) to play in the dirt or pick up plants, sticks etc.  Then I have to eventually load him back up in the stroller and take him home.  Usually he’s pretty good letting me load him back up.  After we return home it’s time for me to make breakfast.  If I make eggs and I have a green onion HE wants a green onion too!  And he’ll take little nibbles of it!  He Really likes having his green oniion!! Sometimes I’ll make him oatmeal with butter and milk on top and he’ll eat almost all of a packet!!  He drinks his juice or milk out of a regular glass sometimes.  He’s very neat about it too!  Sometimes after breakfast he’s ready for his nap.  The nap is usually between 10am and 12pm to start and lasts 1.5 to 3 hours. 
Since he got his Thomas the train set, that takes up a good amount of his playtime.  (sometimes)  He LOVES Thomas!!  He knows all his train cars’ names!  And the helicopter, too (Harold!)  Dylan promotes the names and quizes Robert sometimes. 
He loves to play outside and act like a monkey.  He likes to "hang" from the pomegranate tree branch.  So he climbs up the brick (that makes up a little wall under the tree) and (with me behind him in case he falls) he gets on top of the wall and makes his way over to his favorite branch.  Then he grabs it and picks up his feet so he just hangs there!  He’s usually pretty careful on how he puts his feet down, too, so he doesn’t step into one of the holes in the brick. 
After swinging in the tree, he may play with his toys in Dad’s shop area outside.  He’s got different cars, and a scooter.  He knows how to scoot now on the scooter!!  I caught him doing it the other day in front of his friend, Hunter!!  In fact, I got to see my son showing off in front of his friend!  It was the cutest thing.  I had Hunter (one of our tenants kids) come over the other day, even though Robert wanted to go to their house. ("Hunter’s House" is what Robert says as he tries heading up the driveway to their house!!)  I realized that even Robert’s toys would seem more interesting if Hunter came over, and boy, was I right.  Just seeing another little boy so fascinated with his toys, gave Robert a renewed interest in all his toys as well!  The FIRST thing Hunter saw in our house was Robert’s new Rocking Horse ("Blaze")  It’s a VERY cool horse that my parents bought him for his 2nd birthday.  Lucky boy!!  I had never seen him do this before, but when Hunter saw the horse and showed INTENSE interest in it, Robert hopped right up onto it, and started ROCKING HIS BRAINS OUT!!  But he looked over one shoulder, and put this non-chalant look on his face, like this was no biggie – he always GALLOPS around in his room!!  It was hilarious!  The scooter thing, too, was probably showing off, when he started actually scooting on it in front of Hunter.  Funny kid, Robert!
We have a baby pool, and Robert loves to play in that as well.  Although, it’s not always what you’d expect.  Sometimes he just goes to the pool and starts transferring water into other containers.  In fact, the other day he took a small orange container, and started putting water into it, and then transferred the water into his watering can.  THEN he would take his watering can to the strawberry plants (which are right behind the pool) and with a VERY serious look on his face would busy himself watering the plants!!  JUST like his Dad!  So cute!  He LOVES to help me water plants, too. 
OK.  This is about Robert’s tumbling class.  I signed him up for 6 weeks of tumbling at the YMCA for the parent participation class.  BOY does he have fun when he goes.  We got to make 4 of the classes and already I’ve noticed improvement on his body movements.  He’s working on summersaults and getting better!  He can ALMOST do it himself.  He has tried walking on the balance beam many times, but sometimes forgets to look at his feet so he stumbles off of it (there’s one we tried that sits directly on the floor).  The cool thing about his tumbling class is that he gets free roam of the entire gymnasium at some point during class.  So he gets to jump into the sponge pits (so fun!!).  I noticed that with the deeper sponge pit, he won’t jump into it.  He drops down onto his tush and then edges in.  But he is getting braver with the shallower sponge pit and will jump in feet first.  He LOVES the trapeze or the 2 rings.  He hangs off of them and swings until he can’t hold on anymore and then he requests, "HELP!"  I have tried to teach him how to drop, and he’s getting it a little, but he’s not brave enough to let go on his own yet.  He’s definitely the most rambunctious of the group!  When everyone else is sitting on a color on the parachute (how we start every class) He’s jumping up and jumping into a little pit of balls!  He’s wild and loves this class.  I guess I should bust a move and sign him up for another 6 weeks.  I also want to get him into a parent participation swim class this summer so I’ll have to see which one would work out better right now.
Regarding his diet…it’s fantastic!!  Yay!! He loves fruit, and will eat some veggies (but not much really!)  He loves Mexican spicy carrots, and he likes corn.  I think he ignores peas on his plate.  He does pick the black olives out of my salads, and has attempted to eat some lettuce, but hasn’t really grooved on it yet.  Same with the tomato.  Somehow it always manages to fall out of his mouth!  I’m looking forward to growing some tomatoes so he can enjoy a really tasty one!  (Roy is helping me get set up with a garden)  He also will eat a little green onion from time to time (but I think I already mentioned that!)
Oh, he SHOWERS now!! He stands there with his tummy stickin’ way out (so cute) and takes a shower.  The other day I asked him if he wanted a bath and he said, "No!"  (stinker)
He also loves to write with a pen.  He actually holds it properly (as Roy taught him) and will make the tiniest little scribbles.  He appears to be writing something very seriously when he does that.  And he is constantly climbing up to my desk, or the kitchen table and writing on whatever paper we have handy.  Since the hotel/writing all over the door incident, he hasn’t done any wall art (that I know of!!)
THE ZOO!!  We’ve gone to the zoo twice this week!  Since I have membership, I figured I’d better start using it (5 months have gone by without me using it once!!)  Now we’ll start going more often.  But if the summer is too hot, we may not go as often.  Right now, though, I find it good exercise to walk for hours around the zoo, and Robert has a BLAST.  He entertains people all over the zoo, too!  He’s so dang happy, running about, doing weird little walks, bouncing around, screeching and screaming (mainly if he sees other kids and they’re screaming with excitement then he’ll start).  Yesterday, we were by one of the tropical bird cages and the birds in the cage were making these LOUD screeches and screams.  Robert started mimicing them and YOU COULDN’T TELL THE DIFFERENCE between the birds and Robert.  People were tripping out!  He was adorable.  We got him a coin on Monday with an owl on it.  It’s the type of coin where you put a penny into a machine and it comes out squished with an animal and San Diego Zoo printed on it.  Unfortunately he lost it before we got home.  When I asked him where his coin was, he seemed to panic for a second and asked me, "Coin go?"  (which translates into "where’d the coin go?")  we checked his little pockets but it wasn’t there.  "NOOoooo" he cried.  I said maybe it fell into the stroller and was in my car.  He seemed satisfied with that and promptly forgot about it.  When I checked my car it wasn’t there.  (But I didn’t tell him about it!)  When we returned to the zoo yesterday, I made sure to get us a new coin.  This time it had a meercat on it.  I had Robert keep it in his pocket till we got home and he did!  He is such a doll!!  I just love him like crazy!!
I’m sure we are bound to have lots more fun.  I suspect when he has to go to school I’ll miss him like mad!  We’re gonna have a lot of fun together until then, though.