First official haircut

Today was the day I have been totally excited about/dreading for the past few weeks, Donovan's first official haircut. I was terrified of the scene that he was going to create. I was predicting he would be a scared, loud, nightmare. After his screaming performance last week at the doctor's office, I thought this was a forgone conclusion. Not to mention the fact that we went swimming today and he only took half the nap he usually does. However, if I said it once tonight I have said it 15 times, I am shocked at how well Donovan did!

We had our family friend Lisa do the honor of cutting Donovan's hair for the first time. She offered and I thought "Well, she's met him multiple times. She knows how wiggly that kid is." She did wonderful! It was a total dream situation. I was having nightmares about walking in and her having someone in the chair still and we would have to wait, Donovan melting down the whole time because we wouldn't be letting him run all around the place. We walked in and she was waiting for us with an empty chair! We sat right down, Donovan sat on my lap. Lisa said that 90% of kids won't let her put a drape over them but I told her to go ahead a try and turns out he is in the 10%. He didn't mind. At first when she started cutting his hair he would rub his head where she was cutting. Then after we gave him some puffs he left her alone. Twenty minutes later, we were out the door! Not a fit was had and we left with one handsome little boy.

Just starting out.

Eating puffs and feeling good!
Taming the curly poof that has been residing on the back of Donovan's head.

When she got to the hair around his ears she asked me and Tom to help hold his head steady so she didn't nick an ear. He usually hates being restrained in any sense of the word but he went Catatonic like when we did it. Maybe he was just too tired to protest. Whatever the reasoning, it made Lisa's job a lot easier!

Finished product from the back. No more curly mullet. I miss the curls, not the mullet.
Finishing up the top.

I love the finished product! He looks like a little boy now and less like a baby. Oh wait, now I am sad. (where has the time gone?)

Is it Mardi Gras?

Nope it's just Thursday.






Donovan used to like wearing these plastic bead necklaces. That was before he taught himself how to put them on and and take them off. Now he LOVES it! So now everyday is Mardi Gras in our house!

Hat

Donovan is really obsessed with putting things on his (or your) head nowadays and calling it a "hat". Many things can be a hat really. A blanket, a car, a vegetable strainer, a lampshade at the store, and as pictured above, a small canvas bag. I am just blown away that he gets the concept so well. He also really loves to go get Tom's baseball hat and take it off Tom's head, and bring it to me and put it on my head. I guess he thinks daddy wears hats too much and I don't wear them enough.

This week he is saying lots of new words, and saying old words a lot. For instance "Hi". He says it minimum 150 times a day. It would probably be annoying if he didn't say it so dang cute. He begins saying it seconds after he wakes up. The other day when he was sick, Tom got him up to change his diaper and give him his morning bottle and he laid him on the changing table and poor Donovan croaked out a meager "Hi" with his eyes half closed, nose practically crusted over, and bunny and blanket in his arms. He says it as a greeting and as a way to get your attention. Tom was holding him and talking to me as I was making dinner last week and Donovan started saying "Hi". Tom wasn't paying attention to Donovan as we were talking so Donovan kept saying "hi" and then pausing until he finally grabbed Tom's shirt, got in his face and yelled "hi" and got his daddy to say it back. He will also say it as we pass strangers in the store which usually catches people off guard and makes them laugh that such a little guy gives such a clear and enthusiastic "Hi!". If you have never heard him say it, you really should. He makes it a three syllable, three different note word.

The new words he is saying are:

All done- (said in his own way of course)
"guck"- truck. Says it for all things with wheels. Tricycles, scooters, cars, trains, airplanes. He learned it a few days ago and said it about 60 or 70 times today.
"Paw Paw"- grandpa
yeah- very clear
Auntie- (in a Dono way)
"Mo"- more
"off"- means light apparently now because we say it so much when we let him turn the light switches on and off
"uP"- up. Used interchangeably with "off"

And he said sock today but I can't (well... shouldn't) type what that sounded like ;)

As far as the colds have gone we are all finally feeling human again. I ended up taking a sick day off work on Friday so I had 5 days off work in a row but I commented to Tom today that 5 days off when you are sick means a whole different thing than 5 days off when you are well. Not half as fun. Well I better get to sleep to try and get this cold all the way gone before it starts coming back agin.

15 month well visit

Today we had Donovan's 25 month "well" visit with the Doctor. I put "well" in quotes because for the first time in Donovan history we had to go through the sick door in the office as Donovan has had a cold the past 3 days. A cold that he so graciously shared with both his parents. I feel like crap, and Donovan is running around like a crazy person still. Not fair. To add to that exciting news we found two molars that have broken through his gums so we thought that this would be a fussy visit. What we did not expect from the visit was that Donovan would have a left inner ear infection, his first! So our little boy is on his first antibiotics. We gave him a taste of the meds tonight before we pushed it all in and he spit it out, grabbed the rejected medicine and handed it to us. Luckily the rest went down without a fight.

I feel too cruddy to write much more so here are his stats:

Weight: 25lbs 9oz (66%) (also, it turns out he is no where near the 30lbs I had been predicting, oops)
Length: 31 3/4 inches (71%)
Head circumference: 19 1/4 inches (96%)

Still thirsty

Tonight Donovan found a new way to drink water. He took Petey's nasty old plush carrot chew toy, dipped it in Petey's water bowl, then sucked the water out of the carrot. Such the little thinker.

Zoo day

Today we had a great day at the zoo! Tom played hooky from work and I asked his mom to come along as well so Dono and I had great company. The St Louis Zoo has a free hour, which means you can do several things for free for the first hour that the zoo is open. One of those things is the children's zoo, which I really wanted to take Donovan to. We were running a little late so I dropped Tom, his mom and Donovan off and they ran to the children's zoo only to be one minute late. But the nice girl selling tickets saw them running and took pity on them so she let them in for free. Thanks girl at the ticket office, you made me very happy! So anyways a few minutes later when I met up with them after I had parked the car we began our wonderful day. We got to see lots of stuff up close in the kid's zoo.

For instance a turtle. We tried to get Donovan to pet her but he preferred to look from afar.

Inside the kid's zoo there was this car that Donovan thought was the coolest! He sat in it and turned the steering wheel lots, and did lots of head banging and body moving to try and get that car going. I think he would definitely say that it was the highlight of his day.

Looking (sort-of) at the naked mole rats.
This was some sort of lizard that you could touch. I was shocked when Donovan actually touched it! He petted it with one finger, then thought "That went well" and decided to squeeze it. Oops. Don't fear, we stopped him before any real internal damage was done. (Tom is imitating the squeezing in this picture I think).
Donovan checking out the petting goat area. He preferred to put the poopy rocks from the petting zoo in his mouth then to pet the actual goats. Yuck.

"Fine, if you aren't going to let me eat the poop covered rocks I guess I will just pet the goat." Parents are no fun,
The last time we went to the zoo the Penguin house was a little scary for Donovan. He was scared of the loud Penguins that were yelling at each other but not this time! No crying for D.C.Q. He was pretty wide eyed the whole time but the birds yelling at each other didn't even phase him this time.
Tom was insistent from moment one in the zoo that we ride the train. I think Donovan could have cared less but since his daddy insisted, we took a ride. Once again, Donovan was pretty wide eyed, but he never got upset or showed that he really loved it. So lets call it a success!
Donovan had a death grip on his Cheerios's in his snack trap all afternoon. We joked that he better not eat a cheerio on the train because they said no food and we didn't want him to get us kicked off. There was no prying that thing from his hand all day.

Traded sitting by mommy to sit by Grammie and Daddy.

We stayed for several hours and thought that Donovan would be ready for a nap when we hit the car. He showed us by staying up for an hour after we got home (and an hour plus over due for his nap.) All in all a great day!

Puppy love

We'll begin with puppy kisses...


add lots of hugs/squeezes...


sprinkle in a few pets...




and end with a little fur tug. Thanks for putting up with this Petey.

What we do for fun

Sometimes, I just let Donovan do whatever he wants to keep him happy. Not anything dangerous of course but for instance the other day...he was all over the place. He climbed up on the bench of our dining room table and turned on our (back-up) computer. How does a 14 month old know the one single button to push that turns on the computer? It is the first one he goes to every time. I was skyping with my parents the other day and he just walks by and presses the off button. Then when I had booted back up he walked by and did it again. Seriously child. How do you know the single button I do NOT want you to press?



Then he decided to play with Petey's food. He picked up the bowl, and carried it around for a while. Then he poured it over his head onto the ground and the bench. Then after I picked up some of the food and put it back in, he tried to drink the food. Got two pieces in too. (I fished them out).

I love the look on his face in this one


Petey: "Ummm, es-cuse me brudder... I beweieve you have my food." (they call each other "brudders" in case you didn't know)




Then later (which I did not get a picture of) Donovan decided to pick up Petey's water bowl and drink out of it. He then spilled most of it on the floor (tile) so I went over and tried to wipe it all up before he slipped on it and hurt himself. As I was wiping he was swishing it all around the floor with his hands. Then he crouched down and started LAPING THE WATER OFF THE FLOOR! Does he think he is a dog? Do we not give him enough to drink (answer: we do. He has a sippy of water at his reach constantly). I think it must be a boy thing/phase. One of my co-workers has a son 2 months younger than Donovan and she says he tries to drink out of everything. One time they were outside and she heard slurping and she turned to see her son lapping up water from a puddle! Boys are so gross!
.

Double fisting

Donovan is a man of twos. He insists on having two of everything. Two sippy cups, two strawberries, two crackers. He'll deal with one, but he prefers to be balanced, one in each hand please. Maybe he doesn't want the other hand to get jealous. Whatever his reasoning is, it is what it is. So if you are going to offer him something, please offer him two.

"Up"

One of Donovan's latest words he mastered this week is "Up". I love is because he says it so well. His enunciation is spot on and he uses it correctly. He really pronounces the "p" part of it, especially when he has said it once or twice and he feels that you are not honoring his request. In that case it sounds something like this: "Up" (pause) "uP" (smaller pause) "uPPPP", usually followed by an adult picking him up to obey his command. Friday he pointed to his toy box and requested "up". So I put him in his toy box. Apparently he wanted to be in there so he could get a better angle on the trucks that he pushes in front of the tv. Then when he was trying to get a truck that he was sitting on, wow did he get mad in a hurry. This kids frustration meter goes from 0 to 100 very fast.

Playing in my toy tub.



"I want this truck but it is not coming!!! I can't muscle my way through this one and I am MAD!!!"

Dental Hygiene

Apparently Donovan does not think the ratio of one toothbrush per 7 teeth is appropriate. He prefers 1 toothbrush per 3.5 teeth. Good thing he has a daddy toothbrush to help out the plaque situation.

"Hey ery-body..."

"This is how I wear my spaghetti sauce."


"And this is how I help fold the laundry"



"And this is what I look like when my parents take me to a Jersey Shore themed party"

Little Drummer Boy

Dad post! So Donovan and I got home today and he was acting tired so I thought I'd try to rock him to sleep. Well, as soon as we tried that he was like "just kidding! I'd like to play now!" So we came out to the living room to play. He grabbed his drum, which is full of other musical instruments and immediately dropped the whole thing on his foot. Not good. But he quickly got over it and started tossing everything out of the drum. He was banging and ringing hitting and I left him by himself for a minute and sat down on the couch. The next thing I know, Astronaut Dino! He had taken the drum, turned it upside down and placed it on his head like a space helmet. I managed to spring up and grab the camera to snap a few pics. Here are a couple of my little astronaut "space walking".

Notice the front is clear so he could actually see what he was doing.


"Hey everybody! I got a new helmet!"