An Obsession and a Movie Review

Couple days behind this week. I'm blaming the travel days and the tryptophan. We are up in Virginia with my extended family and Thomas' cousins. Mom and son are both a little under the weather. We think this is Thomas' first real cold and he's actually fairing a little better than mom. His nose is running and he's sneezing and coughing, but he's still non-stop. Part of his non-stoppedness (made up word that I just copyrighted, so please send me royalties every time you use it) is his new found obsession and the first real grey hair inducer that he has presented his parents; stairs.


Thomas absolutely loves going up stairs, whether it is one step to get in out of the living room at MeAnn and Pop's or a full set of stairs (which are also at MeAnn's and here at the beach). We've got them blocked off with a gate, but he goes for them every chance he gets and it is just the most awesome thing to him. Maniacal laughter and, at times, reckless speed up the stairs. He's also working on down, but that is too much for me, so I end up hovering about 5 inches from him. We've got a video of him climbing that I will post here.


And the movie review. We drove to Shreveport last week and for the first time, used a DVD to pacify/entertain (Pacytain, copyrighted!) Thomas. The movie chosen, and basically Thomas' first movie to watch ever was the Muppet Movie. Thomas asked me to submit this review on his behalf. I am but a ghost writer, so the opinions and views of Thomas do not necessarily represent those of the site.


"Hi everyone and welcome to Thomas' Back Seat Movie Review. Today I'm reviewing the film 'The Muppet Movie'. A harrowing tale of good and evil. From my research, I've learned that this movie was released over 30 years ago, or 15 Thomas' ago (Get it? Because I'm almost 2 and so 15 of me would be 30! Huh? Huh? Never mind, its my first joke, they're bound to get better once I learn some more words). 30 years, wow! Can you imagine how big iPads must have been back then? I was really looking forward to this movie, because I'm huge follower of Elmo and my understanding is that some of the characters in this movie are Elmo's kin. So, did I laugh? Well yeah, I laughed my head off, but to be honest, I laughed my head off at the Geico commercial with the little piggie, and some times when my mom says 'in a moment', so the bar isn't that high.


Overall, I found the muppets to be colorful and they moved on the screen alot. I really like that. Give me random movements and lots of action and I'm pretty much in. The plot was charming, but I found the number of cameos to be excessive and honestly I didn't really recognize most of them. Eventually I got distracted by the lights of the passing cars, so I don't really know how it ended, but I'm pretty sure since it was a movie about the muppets wanting to make a movie, things must have turned out ok. I give it 3 out of a possible 4 pacifiers. Until next time, here's burping at you."


So there you go, Thomas is a tough but honest critic. Since we're talking movies, Thomas was kind enough to pose for two shots, the first as Harry Potter and the second as Harry Potty. Get it? Huh? Is this thing on?

One Small Step

Week 2 of the new and improved blog. Feeling fine. So I spent a fair amount of this last week considering what I could/should write about. I've got a goodly amount of ideas, but I wonder what is noteworthy and interesting vs. pedestrian and common among all parents. Alot of life now is about making those personal sacrifices that I frankly have a hard time making. As Thomas becomes more mobile and curious and independent, he becomes more time consuming and challenging and exposed to dangers. Whereas before when Thomas would just sit there and we were worried that he was breathing and growing and all that good stuff. Now, he is moving and exploring and into everything he can, so if he's awake, we have to be vigilant and basically on guard duty.

A leash seems alot more plausible and acceptable than it would have before (he is dressed like a dog above, so why not). I guess we won't resort to that, but I'm not entirely ruling it out. So there feels like very little downtime exists for either of us and I know I'm getting more sleep than when there were feedings in the middle of the night, but I still feel really tired. I think Rebecca does too, but you know, its my blog, so we're going to focus on how tough it is on the dad.

So, anyway, the focus of today's blog is this exclusive, never before seen footage of Thomas walking! He's been toying with the idea for several weeks now, but I think we're really getting close and here is the proof. Please enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL0pB_DW6c4

A New Year's resolution

They are an utter waste of time...unless you start one in the middle of November instead of January 1st. I've missed writing this blog, but much like my homework that I used to ignore, once you let it start slipping, the pile just becomes so unwieldy, its easier to hide from it than to try and tackle. So I've made a promise to myself to try to get back into the groove on this. I'm not going to tell anybody though, so maybe you'll find it and maybe you won't. Of course, if you haven't found it, then you didn't read that last sentence, so I'm only talking to the ones that did find it. Shame on the rest of you for not continually checking the blog while I ignored it. See, now its your fault and I feel better about myself.

Oh yeah, we're here about Thomas. Thomas is less than 2 months from his second birthday. So what has he been up to? Well he's about 19 pounds and about 30 inches long. He presents a challenge for mom and the clothing industry, because he is long and thin, which I guess is un-baby like, but it is dad like, so I'm cool with it.

Achievements. Let's list them:

• He's really, really good at repeating words. This video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZiP0nbeFYc is just the beginning. Please ignore the fact that we keep our child in a cage outside with a dangerous animal. Its just easier to keep our house clean this way. I will post another to show his vocabulary. He's also good at pointing at things you ask him to point out. he knows how to brush mommy's hair and pretend to feed Elmo the way he gets fed.
• He's standing. He can pop up and for the most part just hang out without any assistance.
• He can bench press 10 pounds. It doesn't sound like much, but we're really concentrating on form right now.
• He's not walking yet, but he can if you hold one hand. He crawls, really, really fast and wants to be able to walk that fast. So when he can't, he abandons the walk for four legs. He also bear crawls and he's started moving on his knees without his hands, kinda scooting.
• He can open drawers and cabinets and has his eyes on door knobs. Which is really awesome for us.
• He ate part of a crayon today. This is actually quite huge. Because of all of the tubes and such that he had to have down his throat, Thomas has an aversion to textures and still can't handle solid food without gagging. The crayon was the biggest and most solid thing he's eaten. It was yellow.
• He knows right from wrong. He doesn't really care, but he does know. There are certain things that Thomas likes to grab or places he likes to go. If we catch him and say no. He crawls away as fast as he can and laughs his head off. Its quite maniacal.
• He just continues to laugh and be happy as can be. The only times he ever cries is if he gets stuck with a needle, he doesn't want to go to bed, or he misses his mommy. Thomas has really become attached to mommy and he misses her, if she's not around.

So that's a quick synopsis of where we are. I will add more, hopefully once a week is the plan. Keep your fingers crossed.