I don’t know. To me, Dylan looks a lot like like Fred here. Is it the shirt? The glasses? The smile?? Tom says, “Yeah. He’s got a Fred-ly facial expression” so I guess I’m not waaaay off…! Cute pic, huh? The glasses really become him….
It’s been another fun, but very exhausting week. We celebrated Taliana’s Adoption Day, Tom’s birthday and Mike’s 70th!
On Wednesday, we celebrated Taliana’s actual Adoption Day with a brunch at Zachary’s and a little side trip to a nearby park. Poor Dylan fell asleep on the way to daycare, but woke up after only about an hour of napping!
Truncated naptimes are usually ok if we have some time to make up the shortfall the following day, but of course, this week, we were also celebrating Tom’s actual bday.
So, on Thursday evening, we did a joint Adoption Day/Birthday dinner at P.F. Chang’s in San Jose which meant another late night for little Dylan. He played alllllll day — first at Hanalee’s house in the morning with Paris and then (he skipped naptime) at daycare. He sacked out before HAT even arrived to carpool over to San Jose! He slept a little on the drive over (and didn’t know we were having yet another celebration, so when he woke up, he was sooo very happy to see Taliana and daddy — see picture), but that was not enough!
Dinner was leisurely. The night went late, Dylan slept late, and the next morning, we were up early again for another trip to the Children’s Discovery Museum. He was so TIRED, but still gamely enjoyed the visit!!
Saturday offered no rest catch-up. We were up early to make goodies — hummus, a pasta dish with tahini lemon sauce, sweet pea guacamole, and mexican hot chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache — for Grandpa Mike’s big 70th birthday bash.
The birthday bash was soo much fun, but it was also another late night! Luckily, Dylan fell asleep in the car immediately, but by then, it was already close to 10:30pm.
To wrap things up for the week, we awoke late this morning (8:30am) and hurried our way to readiness for a nice day trip to Gilroy Gardens with Cindy and the boys, and an old friend of mine from AOL and her 6-year old son.
Dylan is asleep as I type, but we’re about to wake him up so he doesn’t end up sleeping at 11pm tonight!
Hopefully, he’ll be able to recupe some sleep tonight and tomorrow morning.
As to new words this week, he’s got “juice” and “vacuum” down a bit clearer, “thanks,” “spoon” (sounds like “boon”), “cookie,” “cupcake,” “book,” and the cutest thing (in our eyes), are the nods accompanying the “yeah’s,” done whole-upper-body style….
These kids are royalty, for sure. Music Together class was canceled today due to Veteran’s Day, but Dylan and I still got together with Heather and Taliana for a little Monday, pre-work fun! It was such a beautiful day!! Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay at Natural Bridges for too long since we were off to a late-ish start (10:30am) and I still had to go into work.
More pictures of these cuties are here.
Overheard from the dining room where Dylan and Tom are coloring: “Yes, that’s right. She drinks coffee and smokes. That’s why she has yellow teeth.”
Ai yai yai….
November is an exceedingly busy month for us! Not only do we celebrate Tom’s bday, but there’s also my step-dad’s bday, Taliana’s bday, Taliana’s Adoption Day, Thanksgiving (of course), and Heather’s bday (not necessarily occurring in that order!)!!
So, last week, I mentioned we’d gone to the Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose for the second time in one week! Well, the first time we went, it was in celebration of Heather’s bday! Since I normally work from home on Friday evenings, we decided to take the kidlets on a little excursion and, boy, did they have fun! During this first trip, we didn’t even make it to the second floor!
They loved the Secret of Circles exhibit, holding hands on the swing, driving the firetruck and the ambulance, and watching tennis balls get sucked up a tube!
Maybe we’ll have a chance to take Eli and Rocky here during one of their trips to the Bay Area!
More pictures on flickr….
This week was all about four new choppers pushing their way into Dylan’s little world and all the pain that the process entails! We’re not over with the teething yet as only two teeth so far seem to have just, just, just barely broken through the gums! Dylan is doing relatively well, I think, but he has been pretty clingy with me which has made it a little more difficult to feel good about leaving him at daycare or the nanny while I go about my work responsibilities.
Dylan also participated in another child development study up at the University. This one was more interesting than the others simply because he got to play and not just passively observe things.
We also ended the week with a nice bday celebration for Tom! Tom and I both had busy weeks at work but, miraculously, we managed to pull the soup prep off.
In the end, we served seven soups: squash, apple and fennel; butternut lemongrass; Asian noodle soup; lentil-bean stew; chestnut soup; wild-rice and cranberry; and a brandied pumpkin dessert soup. We also served the ever-popular vegan Mexican hot chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache and some lychee cupcakes with coconut glaze.
As usual, Dylan had a blast. In fact, when I told him we were having a party, he broke out in a big, wide grin!
The new things this week include saying all three syllables of “banana,” as well as “baby,” “bath,” “bird,” “book,” “down,” “dat dough” (for “vacuum”), “ju” (for “juice”), “baa” (upon seeing pictures of sheep), “mine,” “me,” and signing “drink.” We also discovered he knows (as we just started asking) what his knees, mouth, teeth, cheeks, ears, hair, toes, feet, and nose are. Now he points to pictures and tells us “daddy”, “mommy”, and for him, “me” (he loves the “me” song we learned from Music Together, too)! And, finally, he has been imitating the Elmo in Chicken Suit chicken dance since last night when Cindy gave it to him….It’s very cute.
Back Log: Holy smokes! At this time last year, Dylan didn’t have any teeth! What’s more he wasn’t even crawling! (Read more…)
Dylan got his hair cut! We also visited the Children’s Discovery Museum — two days in a row (!!) — because now we’re members. And, Tom and I ran the last half-marathon of the season while Dylan camped out at his Lola’s…..
Really! This is what I get when I point a camera at Dylan and say, “ok. smile!” The Little Man is turning into quite the ham!
So, to the cute things he did today…..As testament to all of the fun he had last night, this morning, he came into the kitchen with his basket saying, “tick teet,” and just before heading up to bed tonight, he got out some Halloween stickers and stuck ’em to his hand.
Today, he also said, “poo poo” when he’d finished the deed and promptly laid down on the mat to get his diaper changed! He also said “cookie” and we discovered he knows where his ears are (tonight was the first time we’d ever asked him). Tonight, he also tapped on the side of the coffee grinder (to tap down more ground coffee) just like his dad does! I also think he said “thank you.”
The other day, I also discovered he says “melmo” when he sees Elmo anywhere even though we’ve never explicitly taught him “Elmo” — in the toy store, on his box of cookies, in his little Elmo book from Grandma Sharon, and on his Elmo toy from lola.
Isn’t it strange what these little ones will pick up?
Well, of course, Halloween was fun, but what was surprising was just how much fun Dylan had!
We started with trick-or-treating with Taliana the Big Bad Wolf and Heather Little Red Riding Hood (note that Heather made Taliana’s costume. She did an incredible job!!) and ended with trick-or-treating with Jason Woody and Tyler a vampire (make no mistake, this wasn’t Dracula. If you erred on this front, little vamp would set you straight!)
Oh, we also dressed up for library lap time where Dr. Dylan and the Big Bad Wolf were subjects of a librarian digital photo fest.
Anyway, I luckily got Dylan down for a nap right after lap time, so he was refreshed and ready for downtown trick-or-treating by 2pm. The downtown thing was really nice! We didn’t just pick up candy (we redistributed Dylan’s haul down at Cindy’s house), but he also got some stickers, crayons and some other little goodies.
Dylan had been practicing saying “tick teet” with Taliana and having little this’s and that’s dropped into a basket in weeks previous, so he was primed for the occasion. He didn’t say “tick teet” on-demand, but at times, he did select his own candy and drop it into his own basket…and he certainly wanted to carry his basket all by himself. He was at his happiest when he was down on the ground with the rest of the kids (or, probably, more accurately, like Taliana!).
I successfully kept him from eating any candy while we were in Santa Cruz, but once in Morgan Hill, he managed to break through a Tootsie pop wrapper and we just gave up on trying to wrest it from him.
Seeing Dylan be so into the festivities was so much fun! I’m glad he wasn’t scared at all…in fact, he loved all of the cackling tombstones and skeletons and sang itsy bitsy spider when he saw Cindy’s big fake spider in the kitchen…..
As usual, more photo highlights are on flickr. Christina was a bellydancer, Dre was Tiger Woods, mom was a devil, and we were all doctors (Tom had to be a mad doctor for SJSU, so we decided to make that this year’s costume theme for all of us!).
This, by the way, is why Dylan won’t be a lion this year (picture was taken during this past Monday’s Music Together session)…!
