We went camping again this weekend. This time to Father Hennipen State Park. I can't say I would really recommend the park. The electrical sites were really crowded and there isn't that much trail to hike on. We tried to take a hike out to Pope's Point but halfway down the trail we got swarmed by what I can only speculate (after looking online) were male mosquitoes. There were so many of them that you could hear the whole forest buzzing. Beside this and the really annoying people that camped across the street from us the camping trip went well.
The people across the street bear mentioning...they were really loud and they stayed up until 3am. I am really surprised the park ranger didn't have something to say to them. They also had a kid a bit older then Keegan who was a real brat. He was constantly whining and screaming and coming over to poke through the ex-pen at the dogs. His mother was constantly cutting through our campsite yelling loudly at her son. At one point I finally told her that our baby was sleeping in the camper so if she could please keep it down a bit that would be great.
The other odd thing that happened was creepy. At about 4am Sat. morning Lyle and I were woken up by a loud humming sound. It was really loud, it sounded like someone's generator had kicked in or something. A couple hours later it stopped. Then Sat night around 8pm it started up again. Having had enough of noise for one camping weekend, I took off through the woods to the other campsite to find out what the heck was making all of this noise. Well it was getting louder and then when I got out of the woods it was softer. Lyle and dad met me on the trail with the dogs (mom was back with Keegan who was sleeping). We finally figured out the noise was billions of bugs up in the trees. I kid you not there were so many of them the noise was very, very loud. When you looked up into the trees you could see black clouds of them. The noise went on for a couple hours and then stopped. It started up at 4am again and then stopped a couple hours later. It was seriously creepy. Reminded me a bit of Hitchcock's the Birds. I was waiting for them to all come down and get us.
As far as we can tell they were swarms of male mosquitoes, they never bit, and they never came down from the trees in large swarms. Still it was odd.
Lastly I'd like to talk about Keegan's ADD. Not really, but I swear toddlers have the attention span of a gnat. Keegan was walking toward the camper and then he saw the ball and hitch out of the corner of his eye. Did he stop walking? Of course not. BAM! he walked straight into my parents' camper and bumped his head. An hour later he saw my dad fill up a bucket of water and then took off running towards the water. Did he think to look at the path between him and the water? Of course not; BAM! he hits his head on the other side of their camper. Now he has two nice red bumps on his forehead.
So, now we are at home. Lyle and I are pushing the camper into the garage. Keegan is sitting in the grass reading a book. Keegan decides to come and help us push the camper...while he is reading his book. BAM! He walks right into our camper while reading his book. Now he has a big bruise in the middle of his forehead too! I swear that kid knew that I wanted to take him in on Sunday to get his 18 month pics taken. Now it will have to wait until he looses the bruises. Although maybe I should go ahead with pics...it does say something about his state of mind lately :-)
Monday, July 28, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Mine!
Keegan learned something new at daycare last week. He learned "mine". He still doesn't grasp the concept all that well. Sometimes he says "mine" and then hands whatever he is holding to me or Lyle. Although sometimes he says "mine" and then takes off running with the toy.
He is also employing a hopeful "Mine?" when he sees one of us holding something he wants. It is cute but points to harder times in the future as he struggles to grasp sharing :-)
He has also been dropping his enthusiastic "no" head shake and replacing it with a very clearly stated "NO!". He doesn't do this a ton yet, but it is interesting to watch him develop his own mind about things.
As for the highchair, Keegan is using a Cooshee Booster now. He stays in it really well and really seems to enjoy eating at the table with us. Occasionally he bends over really far and we have to tell him to "sit forward" and "not lean over". The coolest thing about it is that the booster is really lightweight so Keegan can carry it around. He liked to carry it into the living room and read books in it. Then when it is dinner time I say "Keegan go get your chair." Then he'll run over and get it and sit it on the chair in the kitchen.
Speaking of which, Keegan is becoming quite the helper these days! He helps set the table by bringing the placemats over. He also helps bring a plate over once in a while. Although sometimes the plate gets sucked on during its journey to the table. He is very good about helping to feed the cats at night. He goes and collects the cat bowls and tries to set them on the counter (he's not quite tall enough yet). Then Lyle puts him up on a chair so that he can scoop cat food into the bowls on the counter. The Keegan helps put all the bowls down for the cats to eat.
Keegan is also very good at helping with the laundry. He helps sort the cloths and put them in the baskets. He's also been helping to make our bed in the morning, he gets the pillows and puts them on the bed and helps straighten everything out. The fun thing is that he really truly enjoys helping. It seems to help him feel useful. It does make everything a bit slower to do, but that's okay, it's a good learning experience!
Well we are going camping again this weekend. This time it's up to Father Hennipen State park. Here's to hoping the mosquitoes aren't as bad as they were at Banning! We are definitely packing more lightweight long sleeve shirts this time around.
He is also employing a hopeful "Mine?" when he sees one of us holding something he wants. It is cute but points to harder times in the future as he struggles to grasp sharing :-)
He has also been dropping his enthusiastic "no" head shake and replacing it with a very clearly stated "NO!". He doesn't do this a ton yet, but it is interesting to watch him develop his own mind about things.
As for the highchair, Keegan is using a Cooshee Booster now. He stays in it really well and really seems to enjoy eating at the table with us. Occasionally he bends over really far and we have to tell him to "sit forward" and "not lean over". The coolest thing about it is that the booster is really lightweight so Keegan can carry it around. He liked to carry it into the living room and read books in it. Then when it is dinner time I say "Keegan go get your chair." Then he'll run over and get it and sit it on the chair in the kitchen.
Speaking of which, Keegan is becoming quite the helper these days! He helps set the table by bringing the placemats over. He also helps bring a plate over once in a while. Although sometimes the plate gets sucked on during its journey to the table. He is very good about helping to feed the cats at night. He goes and collects the cat bowls and tries to set them on the counter (he's not quite tall enough yet). Then Lyle puts him up on a chair so that he can scoop cat food into the bowls on the counter. The Keegan helps put all the bowls down for the cats to eat.
Keegan is also very good at helping with the laundry. He helps sort the cloths and put them in the baskets. He's also been helping to make our bed in the morning, he gets the pillows and puts them on the bed and helps straighten everything out. The fun thing is that he really truly enjoys helping. It seems to help him feel useful. It does make everything a bit slower to do, but that's okay, it's a good learning experience!
Well we are going camping again this weekend. This time it's up to Father Hennipen State park. Here's to hoping the mosquitoes aren't as bad as they were at Banning! We are definitely packing more lightweight long sleeve shirts this time around.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Packing up the highchair
Early on Lyle and I decided to forgo the big expensive high chair and just get one that straps onto a chair. We got the one below and it worked really well.
It reclined, we could take it off the chair and use it normally, and we could pop the tray into the dishwasher. The biggest drawbacks to it were that I was constantly washing the cloth cover and the chair it was strapped to took a bit of a beating despite our efforts to keep it clean.
Well Keegan is getting to be a big boy now and his tray is getting too small for him. So after hearing my mom tell me that Keegan could sit at the table to eat his snacks, I thought that it was time to get rid of that high chair and go to a booster seat. We have a Fisher Price Healthy Booster seat that we use to travel with everywhere. It is awesome. I absolutely love it. We use it at the bowling alley, camping, at friends' houses, and when we have a baby visiting.
So yesterday I was trying to decide do we get Keegan a booster seat that is made to stay at home or do we use the Fisher Price seat and just take the tray off? I spent some time online looking for booster seats and came up with a new question. Does Keegan still need straps on his booster? I think he probably does at least for a few months. The booster seat I absolutely fell in love with is pictured below. It's sleek, modern, in a nice color, and looks super easy to clean, as well as very portable.
Problem is that it is kind of expensive and the straps look pretty integrated to the seat. My next choice was a Cooshee booster seat. The Cooshee looks more adaptable to other uses and doesn't have straps on it (which is a good and a bad thing). Plus it has a carrying case.
So what to do? I probably research this stuff too much and put too much thought into it... Anyway, I decided we would try Keegan at the table first to see what he thought about it. He was slightly confused at first but really seemed to enjoy eating up at the table with us. I finally got some use out of this placemat that I originally bought for traveling. I only used it traveling once and it's been stashed away in the cupboard forever. But the suction cups on it worked well on our glass table and the trough caught almost all of the food that Keegan dropped. So, I am happy that the placemat wasn't a waste after all. It is pictured below:
Anyway, dinner went really well. Keegan seemed to be proud and happy to sit up at the table. I was happy to get rid of the constantly dirty looking high chair. As for my booster seat dilemma, I think we will try this out for a week and then try Keegan in the FP booster without the straps. If he can manage without straps I'll get him the Cooshee booster; if not well we will have to see if it's worth it to fork out $50 on a ultra-modern sleek design Mutsy booster! Either way it's an exciting change!
It reclined, we could take it off the chair and use it normally, and we could pop the tray into the dishwasher. The biggest drawbacks to it were that I was constantly washing the cloth cover and the chair it was strapped to took a bit of a beating despite our efforts to keep it clean.
Well Keegan is getting to be a big boy now and his tray is getting too small for him. So after hearing my mom tell me that Keegan could sit at the table to eat his snacks, I thought that it was time to get rid of that high chair and go to a booster seat. We have a Fisher Price Healthy Booster seat that we use to travel with everywhere. It is awesome. I absolutely love it. We use it at the bowling alley, camping, at friends' houses, and when we have a baby visiting.
So yesterday I was trying to decide do we get Keegan a booster seat that is made to stay at home or do we use the Fisher Price seat and just take the tray off? I spent some time online looking for booster seats and came up with a new question. Does Keegan still need straps on his booster? I think he probably does at least for a few months. The booster seat I absolutely fell in love with is pictured below. It's sleek, modern, in a nice color, and looks super easy to clean, as well as very portable.
Problem is that it is kind of expensive and the straps look pretty integrated to the seat. My next choice was a Cooshee booster seat. The Cooshee looks more adaptable to other uses and doesn't have straps on it (which is a good and a bad thing). Plus it has a carrying case.
So what to do? I probably research this stuff too much and put too much thought into it... Anyway, I decided we would try Keegan at the table first to see what he thought about it. He was slightly confused at first but really seemed to enjoy eating up at the table with us. I finally got some use out of this placemat that I originally bought for traveling. I only used it traveling once and it's been stashed away in the cupboard forever. But the suction cups on it worked well on our glass table and the trough caught almost all of the food that Keegan dropped. So, I am happy that the placemat wasn't a waste after all. It is pictured below:
Anyway, dinner went really well. Keegan seemed to be proud and happy to sit up at the table. I was happy to get rid of the constantly dirty looking high chair. As for my booster seat dilemma, I think we will try this out for a week and then try Keegan in the FP booster without the straps. If he can manage without straps I'll get him the Cooshee booster; if not well we will have to see if it's worth it to fork out $50 on a ultra-modern sleek design Mutsy booster! Either way it's an exciting change!
Monday, July 07, 2008
Evil fireworks of doom
On the 4th of July we followed our normal tradition of having parents and grandparents over for dinner and fireworks!
We wanted to make sure Keegan could enjoy the fireworks so, we put him to bed at his normal 7pm and then went and woke him up at 9:30pm when we started doing fireworks outside.
Now try to put yourselves in Keegan's tiny little shoes. Here he is snuggled up with his blankie sound asleep. When mommy comes up and plucks him out of the crib. She starts babbling about fireworks and how cool Keegan thinks they will be. By the time we get downstairs and out to the backyard Keegan is still blearily clutching his blankie and sucking on his nook. Then we go outside and "Bam, Bam, sizzle, whistle" (along with bright lights of course).
As I look back on it, that may not have been the best way to do things. Needless to say Keegan was very upset with the fireworks. He starting shaking and crying and clinging to mommy. Then when that didn't stop those nasty fireworks he asked to be put down and then drug himself (Blankie and all) over to my mom's lap and cringed there for a while. Well, that didn't stop them either so it was off to grandpa's lap, etc. etc and then back to mom.
We tried to make them exciting by clapping and talking about how neat they were. Well finally Keegan relented and cracked a little smile. I set him down and then (unbeknownst to me the next fountain was a "Screaming Tiger") "loud whistle". The noise scared the poo poo out of Keegan and he crawled right up the chair into grandpa's lap.
We finally started asking Keegan to go pick out the fireworks. This was the beginning of his firework acceptance. He would go over and dig a fountain out of the box of fireworks. He would toddle it over to Lyle. Then he would come back and sit in my lap while Lyle fired it up. This went on for a while. Then Keegan got too enthusiastic about his duties. He wanted to bring all of the fireworks to Lyle, "Right Now". It didn't really matter and it kept Keegan busy and happy.
For the noisier ones my dad would hold Keegan and yell "bam, bam, bam, bam". For some reason Keegan thought my dad yelling "bam, bam" was the funniest thing in the world and he laughed very hard at it.
After that it was time to go out on the pontoon and take that out to the middle of the lake so that we could watch the Blaine city fireworks. Keegan thought this was super cool. He loved watching the lights from the boat reflect in the lake. The Blaine fireworks were pretty far away and much quieter; Keegan enjoyed them a lot. He kept running between people and yelling "whas that" (his version of what's that) for every firework that was shot up. He also loved shouting "red ball" for all of the big red circular fireworks. He really had a great time which was a relief given how the evening of fireworks had started.
Hopefully he will "remember" some of this next year so that we don't have to start over in dealing with this fear of big loud fireworks :-)
We wanted to make sure Keegan could enjoy the fireworks so, we put him to bed at his normal 7pm and then went and woke him up at 9:30pm when we started doing fireworks outside.
Now try to put yourselves in Keegan's tiny little shoes. Here he is snuggled up with his blankie sound asleep. When mommy comes up and plucks him out of the crib. She starts babbling about fireworks and how cool Keegan thinks they will be. By the time we get downstairs and out to the backyard Keegan is still blearily clutching his blankie and sucking on his nook. Then we go outside and "Bam, Bam, sizzle, whistle" (along with bright lights of course).
As I look back on it, that may not have been the best way to do things. Needless to say Keegan was very upset with the fireworks. He starting shaking and crying and clinging to mommy. Then when that didn't stop those nasty fireworks he asked to be put down and then drug himself (Blankie and all) over to my mom's lap and cringed there for a while. Well, that didn't stop them either so it was off to grandpa's lap, etc. etc and then back to mom.
We tried to make them exciting by clapping and talking about how neat they were. Well finally Keegan relented and cracked a little smile. I set him down and then (unbeknownst to me the next fountain was a "Screaming Tiger") "loud whistle". The noise scared the poo poo out of Keegan and he crawled right up the chair into grandpa's lap.
We finally started asking Keegan to go pick out the fireworks. This was the beginning of his firework acceptance. He would go over and dig a fountain out of the box of fireworks. He would toddle it over to Lyle. Then he would come back and sit in my lap while Lyle fired it up. This went on for a while. Then Keegan got too enthusiastic about his duties. He wanted to bring all of the fireworks to Lyle, "Right Now". It didn't really matter and it kept Keegan busy and happy.
For the noisier ones my dad would hold Keegan and yell "bam, bam, bam, bam". For some reason Keegan thought my dad yelling "bam, bam" was the funniest thing in the world and he laughed very hard at it.
After that it was time to go out on the pontoon and take that out to the middle of the lake so that we could watch the Blaine city fireworks. Keegan thought this was super cool. He loved watching the lights from the boat reflect in the lake. The Blaine fireworks were pretty far away and much quieter; Keegan enjoyed them a lot. He kept running between people and yelling "whas that" (his version of what's that) for every firework that was shot up. He also loved shouting "red ball" for all of the big red circular fireworks. He really had a great time which was a relief given how the evening of fireworks had started.
Hopefully he will "remember" some of this next year so that we don't have to start over in dealing with this fear of big loud fireworks :-)
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
He said what!?
We went camping this last weekend with Tony and Julie and it was a lot of fun. Well, it was fun except for the mosquitoes. I thought that I was going to be carried off. I am not kidding. I stepped out of the car and had around 50 mosquitoes land on my body. It was horrible.
When we got Keegan out of the car I was worried that he might get carried away. All I can say is thank goodness for puddles. While Lyle and I tried to get the camper set up super fast, Keegan happily jumped in puddles. Oh, did I mention it was raining while we were setting up the tent trailer?
It was also the first time we used our awning and screen porch and those things were super nice to have. I don't know what we would have done without them!
All that is well and good but it's not the real reason I am taking time out to write this blog entry. The reason I am writing it is to talk about Keegan's talking.
Man can this kid babble! He talks so rapidly and so non-stop that I haven't got a clue as to what he is saying. He takes himself very seriously when he is talking too. He will sit there and be like "adba gaba fofoo re baloo" and then stare at me. Sometimes he will wait for a reply but most of the time he just starts in with another line of gobbilty goop. Every once in a while he takes a breath and then says loudly "ball" or "kitkak" (kitty cat), or "car" or something else that actually makes sense. I suppose to him we probably sound like we are babbling all the time and he is just trying to imitate us.
It's been funny to listen to him though. Especially while we are in the car! The boy can chatter non-stop for a good 20 minutes or so. Lyle and I just listen, try to get a word in edge-wise, usually end of resorting to saying "oh, really", and laugh it off!
When we got Keegan out of the car I was worried that he might get carried away. All I can say is thank goodness for puddles. While Lyle and I tried to get the camper set up super fast, Keegan happily jumped in puddles. Oh, did I mention it was raining while we were setting up the tent trailer?
It was also the first time we used our awning and screen porch and those things were super nice to have. I don't know what we would have done without them!
All that is well and good but it's not the real reason I am taking time out to write this blog entry. The reason I am writing it is to talk about Keegan's talking.
Man can this kid babble! He talks so rapidly and so non-stop that I haven't got a clue as to what he is saying. He takes himself very seriously when he is talking too. He will sit there and be like "adba gaba fofoo re baloo" and then stare at me. Sometimes he will wait for a reply but most of the time he just starts in with another line of gobbilty goop. Every once in a while he takes a breath and then says loudly "ball" or "kitkak" (kitty cat), or "car" or something else that actually makes sense. I suppose to him we probably sound like we are babbling all the time and he is just trying to imitate us.
It's been funny to listen to him though. Especially while we are in the car! The boy can chatter non-stop for a good 20 minutes or so. Lyle and I just listen, try to get a word in edge-wise, usually end of resorting to saying "oh, really", and laugh it off!
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