toby of the day, 04.05.2008

Today toby discovered melon. And, like our cat wendy, he loves it. After gumming his way through a number of large chunks, we went to take him out of the high chair when he discovered a piece that had fallen onto his lap which he quickly smushed into his mouth. I await the day when, with a little trail of drool from his mouth he says, “mmmmm, floor pie”.

toby of the day, 04.03.2008

Jon’s mom is here visiting us again and reveling in toby’s new size and skills. Today we all went to lunch at our local raw, vegan restaurant. Jon and I have avoided this restaurant because, as grumpy curmudgeons we scoffed at the fact that the waiters purportedly make you say why you’re thankful before serving you, and the names of all the dishes are all self-affirming. Our waiter looked a bit like kid rock, but sounded like some new-agey self help book. We did our best not to chuckle or furrow our brows when he took our orders ("I am poised") and repeated their affirming names (“you ARE poised!”). But in the end, I think he had the last laugh as we were all amazed by how much toby loved him. Whether it was the fishnet shirt, the feather in his hat, or his crazy positive, unironic attitude, toby was smitten ("you ARE smitten!"). i searched the menu but couldn't find the right dish for me - “I am dumbfounded.”

toby of the day, 03.31.2008

We have a scratching post for the cats which we naively hope will keep them from scratching our furniture and rugs, although the state of our furniture and rugs should have convinced us long ago that the scratching post is mostly to make us feel like we’re combating the scratching problem. In any case, a part of toby’s new routine is to meticulously remove all the stray and loose bits of carpeting from the scratching post, one at a time, pinching them with his thumb and forefinger. This means that a part of my daily routine is to grab each strand from him after he plucks it and before he puts it in his mouth. I could say how this training him to use his fine motor skills or teaching him the importance of teamwork (he picks the carpet bits, I add them to our pile), but really it’s just filler, something to keep him busy before he moves on to trying to eat the coasters, reach inside the heater, eat lulington’s food, knock over the bass guitar, or nibble on my shoulder as a sign he would like more milk.

toby of the day, 03.26.2008

I feel that jon and I are getting pretty good at gauging toby’s demeanor and predicting his behavior. For example, last week Toby had a cold. again. This time it was accompanied by a real fever, which we managed with a little children’s tylenol. One night, he was a bit feverish and crying before bed so jon pulled out the sweet sweet acetiminophen elixir. But I warned against it, predicting that it would make toby puke. To which jon countered that throwing up might make toby feel better. So we gave it a try, and it turned out we were both correct. Toby puked, then giggled, clearly much improved. Unfortunately, while we were quite astute at predicting what would happen when we gave him the medicine, neither of us had the foresight to, say, move him off of my lap or off of his bed prior to proving ourselves correct, and consequently his sheets and I were bathed in old, partially digested, milk. but we were right, and isn't that really all that matters.

toby of the day, 03.24.2008

Back in the day we assessed toby’s facial features on a minute by minute basis. Now, while we’re confident that he still has the same features, 2 eyes, 1 each of nose and mouth, a couple ears, we mostly rely on a few peeks at his face that we get each day when we wet his hair in the bath. Toby has sure got some hair. That might be why 95% of people on the street believe he’s a girl. So today we gave him his first haircut. Jon did the bangs, I did the back, and we left the sides long and poky because, well, we like it that way. Unfortunately, he kind of looks even more like a girl now, but he’s quite a lovely girl, maybe even lovely enough to win some sort of pageant. Then we can really cash in. a little Vaseline on his two teeth, and we’re golden.

toby of the day, 3.22.2008

This weekend, toby’s new high chair arrived. After a few weeks of trying to keep him corralled between my legs while spoon feeding him zucchini only to have most of it end up smeared onto my pants and the rug, we decided that there was a reason people own high chairs. Although as we searched for one, it quickly became clear that style and attractiveness were not additional reasons people own high chairs. At some point, someone seems to have misinterpreted a study on things that make kids smarter and concluded that really ugly things are incredibly important to child development. I imagine a group of designers in a little room looking at a royal blue chair with orange stripes and fluorescent green stars and saying, “hmmm, how can we make this uglier”. Fortunately, toby’s uncle micah rescued us from certain disaster by directing us to a Swedish high chair. We now have a beautiful wood chair that is exactly what I imagine Sweden to be like, simple, clean, and sturdy, and we have another allen wrench to add to our collection. Now we can all eat together at the kitchen table, or at least sit together while tossing food on the floor and mushing up parsnips with our fingers. Mmmm, parsnips.

toby of the day, 3.18.2008

A few years ago, jon and I and our friend hemu were in Greece on the island of santorini. As we sat on the patio of our villa built into a cliff, drinking wine and watching the sunset, jon attempted to capture the moment on film. But, as he approached the edge of the patio, the lense of his camera fell off and rolled down a rain gutter which launched it high into the air where it seemed to hover for just a moment before plummeting onto the doorstep of the house below ours just as a woman was walking out. Naturally, the woman was furious that jon was clearly trying to kill, or at least maim her by hurling his camera lense at her doorstep. He apologized while collecting the shards of his lense, but there was little we could do to placate her. I had forgotten about this incident until recently when we put our new baby carrier into the wash and accidentally closed the door on one of the straps. We realized this too late, and somehow the machine ran anyway, ripping the strap apart, and ruining the rubber seal on the washer. Consequently, the washer wouldn’t open but just kept slowly spinning and telling us it had one minute to go. Our clothes languished in there for 3 days while we kept calling the laundromat owner asking her to release them. When I finally talked to her, I had a rather uncomfortable conversation where she asked us to please not break the washers in the future because they leak a lot of water and are expensive to fix. I tried to explain that we had not intentionally sabotaged her washer with our pricey baby carrier so that our clothes could sit, damp and spinning, for days, becoming mildewed, but somehow she didn’t believe me. I’m not sure why people seem to think we’re out to get them, although jon and I are pretty intimidating, sinister even. I bet if we both wore black and had handlebar mustaches we could start our own mafia. Toby could be our enforcer. The inner sunset would live in terror under his iron fist, well, once his fist isn’t quite so chubby.

toby of the day, 3.17.2008

Today toby and I hung out in the park watching the ducks. Actually, toby had no interest in the ducks but was intent on finding and eating my cell phone. At one point a young Chinese girl a little older than toby came and laid down on our blanket. Her mother and grandmother then came over and, rather than collect the girl, proceeded to take her picture while she petted toby’s head. Toby of course played hard to get while continuing to eat the phone. The family then tried to leave, but the girl wouldn’t budge. at first they just left her there, but then a few minutes later they returned and carried her off. it occurs to me that I perhaps should learn a few phrases in mandarin should such a situation arise again, like “hello” and “it’s a pleasure to meet you” "nice weather we're having" “no, no, he is a boy, he just has a lot of hair” or “wait, don’t forget your child that is sitting on our blanket”

toby of the day, 3.10.2008

Yesterday we bought toby his first puzzles. One of them makes animal sounds when you pull out the pieces. We’ve concluded that perhaps one reason this puzzle is for ages 2 and up is that the pictures of the animals are made of paper. Toby has so far managed to dissolve a duck and part of a cow in his mouth. We also bought a puzzle of wooden animals, one for each letter of the alphabet. For example, vulture for V, iguana for I, and unicorn for U. It was made in sri lanka. I wonder if they still have unicorn in sri lanka; naturally, I had assumed they were extinct everywhere. In any case, there are a few animals that are giving us trouble, which is unsettling since I have PhD in zoology. Jon on the other hand has a PhD in neuroscience, so it’s understandable that he’s stumped. For example, there are a number of animals that start with N, like narwhal, nilgai, noolbenger, numbat, and nutria, none of which look like a tiny yellow bird. Q is also a tiny yellow bird, which leads me to assume that sri lanka is a magical land full of yellow birds and unicorn. We might have to visit, if only to get this puzzle figured out. Something else we find unsettling is that the puzzle smells like cheese. We’ve washed it twice. But toby sure likes taking apart (and, of course, eating) his sri lankan cheese puzzle, maybe he’s just telling us he’s ready to sample some french cheese.