Vedvik

We’ve had a busy few weeks. Erik and I were able to take our first trip out of town without Ian, who was lucky enough to stay with Grandma and Grandpa for a few days (thanks very much to them!).   We took a road trip to Durango where we stayed in a great Victorian-era hotel and visited Mesa Verde. We were excited to stay out late, sleep in very late and eat entire meals without interruption. That said, we spent most of an hour over drinks one night looking at pictures of The Boy on our camera. I’ll admit I was a little weepy, which I blame in part on the wine. Erik and I then drove to Silverton and on to Ouray – a beautiful, mountainous trip that I’d recommend. All in all, we very much enjoyed our 4 days on our own (we celebrated our anniversary during our trip, by the way) but we were very glad to see Ian again.

Ian has been a very busy fellow as well. He had his 18 month well-baby visit last month and is doing well – he topped the charts at 34 inches in height (90-95% percentile) and 29 lb, 3 oz (75-90 th percentile). He started a new daycare this week and he seems to enjoy it. I’m waiting for them to give me a call and ask me where exactly he learned the “F-word,” but fortunately, it hasn’t happened yet.   He is using two-word combinations and is very funny. He came back from Grandma and Grandpa’s saying, “Wha haupen?” (ala A Mighty Wind for those in the know) and “Wha is it?” He is still very much in the habit of repeating everything he says over and over and OVER even after you’ve acknowledged him but I hear this is normal. At least, this is what I tell myself after hearing, “Shoe off?” about 1200 times. We took him on a trip to the Downtown Aquarium in Denver on Sunday after our trip and he enjoyed it immensely, as evidenced by racing around shrieking, “Fis-ies, Fis-ies!”

We’ll work on uploading some pictures of our trip and The Boy soon…

Today is not a good day. It’s raining, which means:

1. The grass will grow even faster.
2. We can’t go outside and walk in endless circles around the yard pointing out dog poop and saying, “Yucky, yucky, yucky…â€? (Amazing how much time we can spend doing that.)
3. It was inevitable that today my sweet angel-baby would become the most intolerable living creature on the planet.

I’m working very hard at learning how to deal with this little person. The biggest problem lately is that Ian can’t express himself verbally at the level he comprehends things and that his frustration tolerance is nil. Zip. Nada. He asks for the things he knows how to name by screaming it at me over and over while I race to hand him the things he can have….which leads me to the things he wants that he CAN’T have, which far outnumber those things he can. As I take the remote control out of his hand for the one-millionth time and watch him dissolve into a sputtering, screaming, limb-flailing puddle, I tell myself to be patient. I resolve to follow the parenting tactics I’ve read about. I’ll get down on his level, comfort him through the screams and reinforce his feelings: “I KNOW you feel angry that you can’t ruin a second remote control by drooling into it. I’d like to do that too. I’m sorry you’re upset.� It occurs to me as one of his waving arms knocks my glasses off my face that probably that kid in the Exorcist responded better to this tactic than Ian does.

The worst part is that half of me wants to strangle him most of the time, but I love him so much ALL the time that I just end up feeling guilty and like a bad mom.  I’m his parent and I want to learn how to understand him and how to handle all of these developmental stages that are totally normal. Are there other parents who innately know how to handle all this stuff? Because if there are, I didn’t get the gene.

Wow…is it possible that over a year has passed since our last post??  What happened? A LOT, it turns out. Ian is now a walking, talking, fit-having 18-month old (more on this to come).  He amazes us with how many things he has learned in a relatively short time and makes us sad on a regular basis that he’s not our little baby anymore.  Actually, it makes me MORE than a little sad that my warm, soft, fuzzy-headed infant has become an independent little person.

Erik is still working at Acxiom as a database administrator and I’m still working as a nurse at Rose Medical Center. We bought a bigger house in Thornton last fall…we love having more space and a yard but the big downside is that there is more space and a yard. I’m relatively certain that the yard will kill us in time and I have yet to figure out a feasible cleaning schedule to keep this house looking decent. Oh, how things have changed.

Tonight, Taara and I introduced Ian to rice cereal mixed with formula and apple sauce. I’ve posted some new pictures of Ian on my flickr site.

Click here to go to my Flickr page to see more pictures of Ian.

Taara and I welcomed our new baby on November 26th, 2005 at 10:23pm MST. He was 8 lbs. 2 oz. (3719grams). Ian is doing very well and I hope to have some pictures uploaded soon.
–Update - here’s Ian crashed out in his car seat:

And another of him checking out the lights:

Thanks to the help of my friend Jake, I’ve now got a spot to share some news about the lives of the Colorado Vedviks.