Baby (and Parent) Milestones

Here is one more picture from Christmas. Aunt Michelle and Uncle Anthony brought Will this neat plate that you can write on with a wipe-off marker and leave out for Santa. Bryce helped Will fill it out. Of course all Will wanted for Christmas was "cars" and he definitely did not want elephant poop...please see a previous post for how that conversation came up. Bryce kept teasing him by saying he was going to get some elephantine manure for Christmas so it ended up being written on the plate as well.
In other news: Sawyer had his first taste of solid food on Wednesday, January 2nd. I gave him some single grain oatmeal mixed with a little warm water. The pictures of that event came out blurry so this was actually taken during Meal #2 the following day. As expected, every spoonful came back out as quickly as it went in, but he was quite interested in it. Both times he threw up the entire amount that he had managed to take in immediately after I took him out of the high chair.

We had another first a few weeks ago. A very important milestone in any parent's life---our first call to poison control. It was Friday, December 21st (I think) when Will came down the stairs with an open bottle of rolaids and proclaimed "MMM- I like these!" I said, "Did you eat some of those?" and he said "Yes! I did eat some of these!" I said, "How many?" and he said his usual answer to any 'how many' question: "One...Two...Three...Four...FIVE!" I looked at the package and it didn't say anything about what to do if recommended dosage is exceeded or anything like that, but it did say "Keep away from children" so I figured I better call the doctor. So I called the doctor's office and asked to speak to a nurse...who turned out to be the girl who lives down the street from us and knew it was me from caller ID. She said I needed to call Poison Control and gave me the number. I called the very helpful gentleman at Poison Control and he told me "It is no big deal...at worst he might have a bit of an upset stomach." From eating Rolaids...how ironic.

To be filed under Erin's black list (it appears each of my family member's has one): Ikea. Although I can't write them off completely. Because I still want their stuff. But I'd like to! What a dilemma. Let's just say that even after speaking with a manager and spending 1/2 hour debating the question we still did not succeed in getting a knob for my new bookshelf. Even though Ikea failed to include the knob in the package in the first place, they WILL NOT give you a knob without a receipt...which obviously shows nothing other than that you at one time did buy a bookcase. Clearly they must prevent all those would-be scammers who would lie about having purchased a bookcase, load two unwilling children in a car, drive a half hour, spend another $120 on more merchandise that may or may not have all the parts in the box, spend another half hour waiting in the customer service line, another half hour dealing with a useless customer service representative and waiting to speak to a manager, and then make up a story about not having received a knob for the bookshelf that they didn't purchase in the first place--all in an attempt to scam Ikea out of a pathetic 10 cent wooden knob. Never fear oh weary consumer! Ikea will not allow such deception! They will keep their knobs close to their hearts at all costs.

Following the afore-mentioned Ikea incident we stopped at Lowe's to buy some paint. Sawyer was hungry and fussing in his car seat and some helpful lady came over and told us "In my country--Sweden--they say not to leave babies in those seats for longer than 2 hours because they will get a back ache. That is why he is crying. It amazes me that America is so big and beautiful, but they know nothing about childcare! I just thought it might help." And then she walked away.

As Bryce said "I'm done with Sweden."

We drove down to southern Utah to visit Bryce's grandparents last weekend. On the way down Will was screaming because he wanted some licorice. I offered him some licorice, but that was not sufficient because he wanted the entire bag. He was throwing a major temper tantrum and I was trying to appease him by saying "Look Will! You can have 5 whole pieces of licorice!" and he just kept screaming and I kept offering the licorice until Will yelled "NO....THANKS!" and instantly stopped his tantrum. It was pretty funny. I wonder where that came from.

This morning Will walked over to me and said "Hi Stupid!" Well hello yourself.

A few weeks ago I was sweeping the kitchen floor and had accumulated a pile of dirt and the majority of a box of Nerds that Will had dumped on the floor. As I was trying to sweep it into the dustpan Will came over and was trying to pick out the candy and eat it. I said "Will, that's disgusting...this is garbage." Will looked up at me and yelled "No, this is not garbage! This is what we eat!"

Will woke up crying the night before last and when I went to see what his problem was I discovered that he was totally soaked from a wet diaper. I was in the middle of changing his diaper and getting him in new pajamas and Will was about half awake and started saying "Mommy, I'm so proud of you!" over and over. I'm pretty good at changing diapers if I do say so myself.