The Fox Fix

Trash Trucks

foxorion — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:01:30 +0000

Last night while I was cooking dinner, Fox was playing with play-doh in the kitchen. Rolling and patting and scraping and, yes, throwing the play-doh. All of a sudden he started SCREAMING and crying, holding his hand out and looking at me with pleading eyes. What in the world happened? I checked him for bleeding. None. Bruising or holes or squinting? Nope. I couldn’t for the life of me find a single reason why my child should be crying like he had just gotten a splinter or stabbed himself or something.

Me: Fox! What’s wrong, baby? Are you hurt?
Fox: waaaaaaa waaaaaaa mmmhdmsime o gmodpw
Me: Baby, I can’t understand what you ‘re saying while you’re crying. Say it again…
Fox: waaaaa waaaAAAAAaaaaa djdiowpdkdn todis
Me: (kneeling down in front of him) You have to calm down for me to understand..

I waited patiently, being silently supportive and trying not to panic. This went on for a full minute or two, which is a LONG time when you think your child is injured. Finally he managed to choke out: “I want….(sob)….to…(sniffle)….see a brown…..(sniff sniff sob)…trash truck.”

Are you KIDDING me??!?

Me: (puzzled) You want to see a brown trash truck?
Fox: (nodding in all seriousness) YES…(sob sob sniffle sniffle…more pleading eyes)
Me: (trying desperately not to laugh) the trash trucks are sleeping right now…can we watch one on the computer? (snicker)
Fox: (sniffle) uh huh….yes, please…

I couldn’t be more serious when I say that Fox is passionate about trash trucks. We watched a 5-minute video that showed a large variety of trucks picking up garbage in some Florida neighborhoods and he has been focused on being the best trash truck he can be ever since. He holds out his hand like a claw and says “this is a robot hand on a trash truck” and then picks up things, moves them, and puts them down oh-so-carefully in slow motion. Evidently, trash trucks also stomp in slow motion and say “stomp” with every step. He sometimes changes things up and becomes a backhoe, like last night when he wouldn’t put on his pajamas or lie down in the bed until I addressed all requests to “Mr. Backhoe.” Our imaginations are being nurtured around here these days, just in case you were wondering

Christmas Decorations

foxorion — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 05:52:45 +0000

Making Christmas is so much fun!

Fox helping Daddy make stockings

Motorcycle Man

foxorion — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 02:50:37 +0000

Yesterday evening was the last night of our Christmas Z-family reunion and Fox was going absolutely bat-crazy because…well, who knows? He was bouncing off the walls, perhaps fueled by being off schedule with his days while also being relatively well-rested. The remedy? A bike ride through his grandparents’ neighborhood in the dark well past his usual bed time. It did the trick!

He calls his Skuut bike his “motorcycle” or his “balance motorcycle.” At some point in the ride last night he told me “I’m a motorcycle man!” I’m perfectly ok with that up until the age when he might actually want to drive a real one. He’s getting pretty fast on his little bike, even picking up his feet and gliding along for several feet at a time. And he’s careful to stop and look for cars (when I remind him!) before crossing the road. I guess Matt & I will need to get bikes soon so we can ride together as a family.

We probably rode around for about an hour or so last night before returning home. At some point he told both me and Grandma to stay on the main road while he did a loop through a small cul-de-sac all by himself. “I had to go get gas” is what he told us when he caught back up. I love his creativity <3 I know I have a more recent picture and/or video than this, but here are the picture and video (link) that Grandma recorded on October 23 from his first bike ride:

New Bike for Fox <–link to video

October 23, 2011

Late nights and long breaks

foxorion — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 02:50:40 +0000

Redecorating & rearranging at the house. Fox has a new futon mattress bed in his room that he has fallen in love with. He’s been sleeping in his own room for almost 2 months now…not always by himself, mind you, but always in his own room. It was a choice he made for himself and Matt & I were happy for the switch. He sometimes comes upstairs in the morning and joins us (or one of us) in the big bed for snuggles, but not always. It’s really sweet and I think we’re all getting more rest. Sweet!

Fox is also pretty much potty trained at this point. One of the best things about daycare is the peer pressure of learning to go potty. He’s been in underwear since September and only wears pull-ups for overnight. Sometimes he even wakes up during the night to ask to go sit on the potty. Many times his diaper is still dry in the morning. This is really cool stuff, folks.

Tis the season for tasty treats and family gatherings. Fa la la la la….looking forward to the change of pace.

This is Halloween

foxorion — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:12:02 +0000

No videos. No (good) pictures. Halloween simply wasn’t cooperating this year. Between happening on a Monday and raining for the entire afternoon/evening…well, that about sums it up.

We did get some quality hang-out time with friends. Fox got to play and I got to relax while somebody else created a tasty dinner. That part of the afternoon was pretty much perfect. When the rain made it clear that outdoor trick-or-treating wasn’t really an appropriate option, it was suggested that we take the kids to the mall where stores were handing out candy to costumed kids from 5 – 8pm. But it was already 6:30 and so close to Fox’s bedtime that I almost just took him home. Almost. But his dragon costume was so cute! And when I asked him if he was tired and ready to go read books at home, he replied, “No. Bigger!” Umm…bigger WHAT exactly? “Bigger candy in my bucket.”

Ok then. We could go for just a short bit. Maybe 5 stores and then straight home. Matt was meeting us there after a long day at work. It would be fun. Fox practiced saying “Roar! Trick-or-treat!” while we rode in the car towards the mall. Just a quick trip.

By now I’m sure you realize that this trip was not exactly what we expected. Have you ever been to a mall right around Christmas? Do you remember how long it takes to wait along with the insane traffic, to navigate the parking lot like running the gauntlet, and to walk at the slowest possible forward pace with crowds of people everywhere inside? I’m pretty sure that this was worse than that. Because I’ve been to the mall at Christmas and I think that rainy-Halloween-with-advertised-mall-trick-or-treating is WAY more crowded inside. Less angry elbows being thrown (thankfully!) but WAY more people. A quick trip to the mall this was not. But we got Fox inside and into his costume with his bucket and then….

way more people here than this picture shows

Nothing. As we followed the massive crowd of ghosts and ghouls and princesses and pirates around the upper level of the mall in clockwise fashion, we realized rather quickly that there was NO candy to be found. All of the stores had run out early because the rain brought crowds of unimaginable proportions. I’ve never seen so many empty buckets at Halloween. It was almost comical at this point. Matt & I had both left our wallets out in our respective vehicles, so we couldn’t even buy Fox a cookie like so many of the other parents were doing. I found 2 quarters in my pocket & we stopped at the candy machines with Fox’s bucket. Some Mike & Ike’s and some Skittles and then we were gone. (The return trip through the parking lot was it’s own special event, with a potty break inside the car on the little potty before continuing our journey. Still raining. Worse traffic.)

We arrived home to find a bag of treats for Fox left on our doorstep by one of our neighbors. See! We got tricks and treats this year Happy 2nd Halloween kiddo.

Leaping

foxorion — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 07:52:00 +0000

Today Fox went for a bike ride in our cul-de-sac with his friend. They were on matching Skuut bikes wearing oh-so-cute 2-year-old helmets. Cute cute CUTE! Did I get a single picture? Of course not. But the next time you come over to visit, be sure to ask for a demonstration of his bike riding skills. He’ll be balancing along in no time.

For those of you who’ve never seen or heard of a Skuut, you can see it here on REI’s website (we got it for about $80 at a local bike store). It’s a balance bike without any pedals & it’s just the right height for my two-year-old. My German friend tells me that all the kids in Europe have these bikes first and that it helps them learn to ride the bigger bikes much faster because they master balancing before pedaling. Sounds like a good idea to me! He’s already “riding” the bike around by sitting on the seat and pushing along with his feet with NO problem. He went clear to the end of our street the 2nd day that he had the bike.

Another skill that he relishes working on his jumping. Fox loves to jump. He jumps up, down and over just about anything. We have a rule about the stairs. He’s only allowed to jump off of the last step. If it’s a bit too high to be jumping off of, he always asks to hold my hand. Most of the time he insists that I jump with him. “Mama do it!” he insists. Today, he got to be more of a daredevil as Matt encouraged him to jump off of some stone pillars while we were downtown. Pictures? no But I do have this video…enjoy!

On the Day You Were Born

foxorion — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 04:50:37 +0000

Fox,

You have arrived at your 2nd birthday and you have already developed so much personality that I sometimes forget that you ever were unable to talk. You’ve been singing songs for months and making up your own songs for the past few weeks (or longer?). Not only that, but you’ve also been playing “make believe” in all new ways. Empty plastic bottles are magically filled with “soap” and “water” and you make me and your Daddy wash our hands over and over again while you direct us to “do the back” and “rinse the bubbles.” And you ask us to sing the “ABCDEFG song” while we wash (though recently you’ve been calling it the A-B-Sadie song Your empty little dolphin box now doles out “stamps” on everyone’s hands. You pretend like you can’t reach your cup at dinner and then announce “I got it!” when you finally do. You jump behind pillows and under blankets and yell out “Where’s Fox? I don’t know!” and laugh like crazy before jumping out with a “There he is!”

Just the other day you made a “fishing pole” by pushing together a pen & a straw. You caught all sorts of fish of different sizes and colors, announcing each one and bringing them to me. I unhooked them and helped slip them into the seat compartment of your fire truck. Dozens of red and blue and purple and yellow fish are now swimming about inside your fire truck!

This fire truck (along with your excavator truck…did I mention that you can identify all sorts of work trucks at a glance?) are your favorite rides these days and you absolutely HATE sharing them with any other children who come to visit (2 year olds don’t share very well, but they make up for it in other ways!). I was very surprised when you drove your fire truck into the kitchen & asked me for money while I was cooking dinner. I thought you wanted to play with coins in the piggy bank, so I got it down for you. Nope. You really wanted money. You collected the coins from the piggy bank and put them into your fire truck! Just where were you planning to go and what were you planning to do? I didn’t expect you to do that until you were a teenager!

I don’t remember when we had our first back-and-forth conversation, but I can’t remember NOT being able to talk to you. Just like when you started walking by running across a room, you’ve started talking non-stop out of nowhere. You speak in sentences, laugh at jokes, and listen for answers after asking questions. When exactly did you get to be such a fun person to hang out with? You’ve started using words like “favorite” when referring to items and you love saying “see you later, alligator” and “after while, crocodile.” You pretty much repeat anything you hear and you’ve gotten rather good at eavesdropping.

We have all sorts of adventures these days. What a treat that I have summer days off to spend with you! We’ve done all sorts of things this summer, with your Daddy and family and other friends, but my very favorite times with you are still those early morning hours…right after you wake up. I’ll come join you in bed after you let me know you’re awake and we’ll silently stare out the window together (or at the walls) and eventually you wake up enough to get into some sort of mischief…running around the room, tickling me, pulling up your shirt and pointing out your belly button AGAIN, jumping off the bed & doing flips.

There really is no way to capture all that you are and all that you mean to me and your Daddy these days. We love you, kiddo! Thanks for being part of our adventure. And Happy Birthday!

Pennies in the CD Player

foxorion — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:57:26 +0000

Have you ever wondered how long it would take to access/remove the CD player in a 2005 Malibu? According to Matt it takes about 2.5 hours to disassemble & reassemble the console of my car, which is the only way you can get into the CD player (unless you happen to be a cd…)

Yep. Absolutely inaccessible unless you are a cd…or, unless you happen to be, say…oh, I don’t know….maybe 3 pennies?

Actually, when I first noticed that there were pennies in my CD player, there were far more than 3 in there. I’d say the number was closer to 20. All jammed in there & stacked on top of each other in the opening of the CD player, 3 high in the widest parts of the opening. I noticed them early one morning while sitting in the driveway, just before leaving for school. I started to pop in a CD for the drive to work when I saw the pennies. “How in the world…”, I thought. And then it all came back to me as I remembered letting Fox play in the car for JUST A MINUTE while I brought the trashcans in from the road. I was totally watching him in there. No keys. Everything of danger removed (or so I thought). He just wanted to push all of the buttons & turn all of the knobs on the radio/AC, right? Oh, so wrong!

Did I mention that I found a pencil in the air vent, too?

Let’s just say that playing in the car or truck is now totally off limits for Fox. Lesson learned. And I’m just thankful that it didn’t cost us anything more than time for the repairs. My husband is really good at taking things apart and he generally likes doing it. Thank goodness! Those 3 pennies could have been so much more expensive if Matt wasn’t as amazing as he is. <3

23 on the 23rd

foxorion — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 21:08:37 +0000

Only one month separates FoxOr from his 2-year birthday. It’s the first time he’s turned 23 (months) on the 23rd, and the last time that will happen for another 21 years. So, what’s he up to these day? Talking up a storm! Favorite phrases include “What is THAT?”–he still hears every noise in the neighborhood; now he can *ask* what it is (even if he already knows, it’s still a favorite question).

We’ve come a long way since repeating “Daddy’s truck is RED” a million times. Now he’s more likely to ask if he/we can do something, then start nodding his head saying “Yes” and “ok!”, answering for me with the words he most wants to hear It’s pretty amazing to me that I can pretty much have a back-and-forth conversation with this not-quite-two-year-old, asking questions & getting answers. He’s able to count to 11 when he’s picking up or putting down items and he knows colors really well (Basic 10 pack of Crayola’s with pink thrown in for good measure!). He now asks to sing the “A-B-C-D-E-F-G” song…in fact he LOVES to sing. Songs that you’re likely to hear him singing in our house:

Yakkaty Yak (he whispers the “don’t talk back” part)
I’m a little teapot
Hot potato (from the Wiggles…whoever they are…he picked this up at library story time)
Happy Birthday
the “save me” song (I think this is “Country Song” from Seether…)
and, yes, still the Moose song & the Badger song

He’s now starting to make up his own songs, too…repeating phrases over and over again while he sings them to his own special tune.

He’s still climbing, higher than ever, and jumping off every surface he can. Thank goodness this jumping is usually preceded by the phrase “ready, set, go, jump!” so that I have the opportunity to prepare myself or RUN to supervise when I’m further away.

Since our trip to Washington state he’s also made prolific use of the phrases “see you later!” and “see you tomorrow!” He’s sure to use them on YOU the next time he sees you

I laughed ’til I cried

foxorion — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 21:14:46 +0000

I just got out of work for the day (grading essays out of town) and the following is the email that greeted me from Fox’s “Other Mama” who he stays with during the day. It’s hilarious!:

I started to text you and then realized I’d have to write about 10 texts to tell you about our day, so here’s an email instead

The day started with Fox wanting to bring Big Brother some water. He got 2 water cups, went to Big Brother (who was sitting on the potty), and stood just out of reach, said “Mine water!” and stood there, drinking out of both and grinning.

This conversation happened:
Me: Fox, what’s your mommy’s name?
Fox: Mommy.
BBro: Fox mama name is Christy.
Fox: Christy.
BBro: No, Christy not your mama.
Fox: Fox mama name Christy.
BBro: No, Fox. Christy somebody else’s mama.
Fox (getting agitated): Fox mama name CHRISTY!
BBro: No.
Fox: FOX MAMA NAME CHRISTY!!!

And then, they were trying to jump in unison off the bookshelves in BBro’s room and onto the beanbags & pillows they had piled on the floor. I was getting lunch ready when I heard the following:
Both boys in unison: Ready? Jump! One…eight…nine…WAAAAAAAAHHHH!
Apparently, they jumped off the bookshelf and into each other. Big Brother had a red nose, Fox had a red forehead, and they were both banished from Big Brother’s room because it was the third jumping-related ouchie in 10 minutes.

To help them feel better after the ouchie, I found some temporary tattoo’s for them & put them on their arms and then went back to making lunch. A couple of minutes later, they were lying on the floor beside each other, LICKING each other’s tattoos and saying, “Yucky!” I told them to stop licking each other, so they licked the dog. Told them to stop licking the dog, so they licked the wall, the TV, and the window.

Hope you’re having a good day

This story *seriously* made my day. Looking forward to getting back home for this stuff!