He's Back!

The Vin Man is back in action! After his fever broke last Thursday night he has been on the road to recovery. By Sunday morning is full appetite was back and he ate 2 banana pancakes, 2 pieces of bacon, a cup of veggie juice, and some crunchy cereal.

This week he has been playing all over the house and chattering away as usual. He is practicing numbers and letters right now so oftentimes I'll hear "free", "fouf", "fife", or "eff", "gee", "ooo". I prefer this version of him to the other more sickly guy. It's a blessing and exhausting to have him back.

Today for breakfast I figured it's about time I let him try eating with a spoon. I've been avoiding teaching him this very important life skill for the mere fact that it is very, very, very messy. It was not as bad as I'd expected. He did a great job eating oatmeal and yogurt.

Sick Day With The New TV

Somehow, the past 17 months, I have been able to keep Vincent from catching any colds until now. I'm not sure if that is a testament to my outstanding parenting and obsessive germ fighting abilities or a sad illustration of the fact that we are hardly ever around other people. To help fluff my ego I firmly believe it is the former....I'm a swell Mom!!

Our poor little guy got a runny nose 2 weeks ago and was slarfing and snotting all over the place. It was gross but he seemed to be handing that pretty well. He still had a massive appetite and never slowed down his busy play schedule one bit. He seemed well overall, except for the oozing, so we were not worried.

Happy guy with a runny nose.

Rob and I both started with the sickness then too. I followed the high wisdom of Don Tonyo (aka my Dad) and put nasty Vicks on my feet before bed for 2 nights in a row and I was cured in just a few days. The runny nose never went into coughing and as a bonus I has incredibly soft feet! Rob humored me with the Vicks feet for one night but after realizing that it was going to soften his feet he refused any further treatment saying, "Chuck* don't moisturize." Needless to say Chuck is coughing his brains out now like it's cool.


This weekend Vin started coughing. It is so sad to hear him hacking and then have him look at us with confused little puffy eyes wondering what is happening. Yesterday he started with the fever and all play activity came too a standstill. I never realized how active he actually is until he stoped completely. He will even sit still and let me snuggle him up...that is amazing and wonderful even if it came to pass under sickly circumstances. Since yesterday we have watched Finding Nemo six times.

Poor little sick dude actually sitting still.

Rob installed the new TV last night so today we are watching Nemo in full on IMAX style. This new TV is embarrassingly HUGE, I have no idea why this is necessary in life but I guess it is a guy thing.

Tiny Tower & Botzes

I was reading online the other day that by the age of 2 children should be able to build a block tower that is at least 6 blocks high.

Vincent is only 17 months old, but in typical New Mom Chelle OCD fashion I started to panic and asked Rob:


"Can he do this?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure? Six whole blocks?"

"Yes."

"You've actually SEEN him do this?"

"Yes," with much less patience

"Really?"

"Yes!!"

"Hmm"


Apparently, I spend 13 hours a day with the kid and am completely oblivious to his accomplishments. Rob gets to see him 2 hours a day and is the foremost authority. I made a mental note to do some research on how to pay better attention.


I know that Vin has a current fixation with boxes. No matter the place or size of the box whenever he sees one the shrieks "BOTZ!!" We think it's funny and indulge him whenever possible. Lately our living room has been littered with empty food boxes, mailing boxes, moving boxes, and the like. Our only rules with the boxes are: don't peel them, eat them, or use them to climb up on things or we will take them away. He's been having a blast. He even put one on his head, walked around the room and smack into the buffet table. He fell on his butt in dazed confusion. It was so funny but happened way to fast to get a picture. I told Rob to put the box back on his head and give him a shove toward the table again so I could get a picture. He just looked at me like I was crazy and said would be "too mean." OK whatever, he says mean, I say funny...it seems we have different parenting styles.

New "botz" house all prepped with blankie for easy sleeping.

Mailing "botz" - excellent outerwear for those cool island days.

Happy poser "botz" face...this is his new goofy look for the camera when he wants to be silly.

Yesterday I was cleaning the kitchen and Vin was playing in his playroom when I realized that things had gotten too quiet. (Still need to do that pay attention research by the way.)

I turned around and to my total delight and amazement my genius prodigy of a son singlehandedly put all my fears to rest. He had built a tower that was 14 pieces high! I watched in amazement as he put the final piece on top and made a mental note to do research on early toddler architectural training.