Gavin Michael Curt

Gavin has been very accident prone lately. Two nights ago, he pulled the 40 pound can of dog food out of the cupboard right down onto his big toe. He was so hurt and kept shaking his finger at the dog food saying "No, no, no" to it. Yesterday at daycare he fell onto the floor without breaking his fall and both his upper and lower lips split. Poor guy is walking around with swollen, blood soaked lips and a bruised toe. Not to mention that nasty bruise on his forehead which is now a lovely shade of gray. He definitely feels better when he shakes his finger at the things that hurt him. This morning, Tyler was grabbing him by the arm and made Gavin fall down so Gavin pointed his finger at Tyler and said "No, no, no" to which Tyler cracked up and replied "Gavin, you're so silly."

I'm beginning to wonder if daycare doesn't suspect something. It seems like every Monday I bring Gavin in with a new bruise. Every Monday his teachers ask "What happened to his head?" It's always his forehead. I sometimes wonder if they think the stories are getting more like excuses for not watching him closely enough or even something worse. Nine times out of ten, though, I'm right there watching when he hurts himself and there is usually nothing I can do differently. This Monday's bruise is a dosey. It happened on Friday (he stayed home sick with lovely diarrhea on Friday). He was playing hard and having fun and took off to go pick up a book off the ground. No, we don't prefer to keep books on the ground, but if they are up on a shelf, Gavin pulls them down onto the ground. So there was a book on the ground and Gavin leaned over at full speed to pick it up. He was so focused on the book that he failed to see his shape sorter made out of solid wood in his peripheral vision and bang, his forehead went full speed into the corner of the shape sorter. Darn Melissa & Doug for making such a quality toy. Darn me for not picking up his books for the twenty-third time that day. Darn Daddy for sitting right with Gavin and watching the whole thing and not knowing that Gavin was not going to see the shape sorter until it was too late. Sure enough, he's got a nasty bruise on his forehead yet again. Must be Monday.

We constantly try to protect this daredevil from getting hurt. In fact, yesterday, Gavin was put on his very first time out for this very reason. It seems he thought it was funny to stand up on the couch. He thought it was even funnier when I approached him to correct his behavior. He even fell off the couch and narrowly missed the corner of the coffee table. Then he jumped right back up, laughing as I approached to save him from harm's way. We couldn't get through to him and he loved the attention he was drawing. So, Daddy picked him up and put him in his crib as a timeout. You're not supposed to use their crib for timeouts but we weren't prepared for this. One minute for each year of age. He was mortified when I went to get him 1.5 minutes later. But he calmed down and seemed to understand for some time, as he did a good job and got positive recognition for sitting on the couch. Until we turned our backs to cook some dinner and he was at it again. A second timeout. Another 1.5 minutes of his screaming and hysteria. When I picked him up this time, he was shaking and his heart was racing. Ok enough timeouts for that day. Tyler was genuinely shocked when I told him Gavin was on a timeout. Up until now, Tyler probably figured that Gavin was allowed to do whatever he wants and Tyler was the one who suffered all the consequences. I could see a change in him as I explained that Gavin wasn't listening to me so he was on a timeout. Tyler first was really curious about what Gavin did wrong. Then he turned a little protective, telling me he was going to get Gavin out of his room because he was going to be a good boy now. Tyler should know all about timeouts, he gets them at least twice a week. I watched Super Nanny on Opera the other day and she suggested using a "naughty chair" so when Tyler kept throwing his bowling pins at the wall after my warnings, I put him on a chair we rarely sit on, called it the "naughty chair" and told him to stay there until the timer went off. Usually he sits quietly on his timeouts, but this naughty chair business got him really upset. She may be on to something! Watch out, Gavin, Super Nanny also suggested a "naughty mat" so I'm going to find one of those for you.

Gavin was bouncing off the walls last night, literally. I don't know what Kindercare gave him but I'm sure it had a lot of sugar in it. Instead of eating his dinner of teriyaki chicken and rice, he first brushed every last kernel of rice and every stick of broccoli off his plate and onto his highchair tray. Then he brushed those same morsels off his highchair tray onto his highchair seat. Then he proclaimed he was all done. Eager for him to stop making a mess, I let him get down and removed his clothes full of clothes and he took off running in his diaper. Next he pulled off his diaper right before my eyes. Then he dove onto the Spiderman couch. Then he climbed from that couch to the big couch only to stand up on it. All of these are things he normally is not allowed to do and does a fairly good job of listening to. As I told him to sit on his bottom, he rolled off the couch only to dive back on Spiderman all over again. It was this crazy rampage of energy as if he was just jumping from one no-no to another quicker than I could say no! I figured it had to stop eventually but it didn't on it's own and he bounced off the walls until I got him into the bathtub. I fell asleep early with the kids last night. This morning when I woke up, the house looked like a tornado had run through it as the couch, his books, toys and clothes were strewn all over the house. Not to mention the rice and brocolli mess was all over the highchair and table. I plucked a kernel of rice out of his hair on our way in to daycare this morning and promptly informed them to decrease his sugar intake!

Presently, Gavin's favorite book is We're Going on a Bear Hunt which reads with a beat and to keep the beat, we clap our hands against our legs. Gavin loves doing this and gets really into drumming the beat. Last night after I read it, he wanted to look at the book on his own. As he flipped through each page, he surprised me by saying the words that I didn't even think he could say. On one page, their going through the forest "Stumble, trip. Stumble, trip. Stumble, trip." Gavin said it perfectly! Then the next page they're in a snowstorm and Gavin did a very good immitation of the sounds "Whooo ohhhh. Whoooo ohhhh." I guess I don't give him much opportunity to say things because he's so quiet I figure he doesn't have the words. But maybe he's so quiet because Tyler's busy doing all the talking and Gavin really does have the words he just doesn't have the opportunity to say stuff. Go figure. Tonight we'll work on Tyler staying quiet (yah right!) so Gavin can read for us.

Yesterday we visited Papa's new place and then went to the mall. Gavin slept through our visit with Papa but at the mall he sure was a friendly guy. He rides in the front of the stroller now because I have no steering control when Heavy T is in the front. So, Gavin just sits up there and waves hi to everyone, points at the balloons and lights, and looks all around. He was making friends everywhere we went. I noticed he especially likes to say hi to the women. And, as one pointed out to me, he seems to be able to spot a grandmother from a mile away as he drew several right up to his stroller. So these sweet little ladies come up to say hi to friendly Gavin and then when they get close, Tyler pops up from the backseat and says "Mama what's that lady want?"

The holiday madness is over and I'm back to the blog! Gavin has really changed in the past month, between being home more with me during the break and taking some sick days at home while we sent Tyler to school, Gavin's vocabulary exploded. Without Tyler around to speak for him, he quickly adapted to using his words. We read as many books as we could and I have to say it was really nice being able to let him answer my questions (what does a dog say, where is the butterfly, where is your nose) without Tyler there to blurt out the answer. Major growth! His temper is also flaring up as he's not always able to say what he wants, or get what he wants (no cookies before breakfast!). When he's mad, Gavin bends over and bangs his head on the ground. Tyler did the same thing. Only, Gavin bruises much easier than Tyler so he's cruising around with several forehead bruises these days.

What else did I miss blogging about? He had a major accident and split his chin open. We opted to try the amazing Liquid Bandaid which I've heard they're using more of in the emergency room and it worked like a charm. Saved us a big deductible and stopped the bleeding very fast. He threw up a few times and I did a really good job of not throwing up right back at him out of sympathy. Don't get me wrong, it was disgusting, but the nurturing instincts were stronger than the reactive stomach instincts thankfully.

He had an ear infection and because of his past reaction to Amoxycillin, the doctor tried Zithromax to which his only response was a bad side effect of peeing dark urine. So they had to bag him and capture some pee to make sure he didn't have high billirubin levels. He didn't but the whole bagging him thing was really fascinating. He got x-rayed for pneumonia--negative, tested for RSV--negative thankfully, and on our very last day of Kaiser coverage, Dr. Zubach bless his heart gave us a prescription for a new antibiotic which worked wonders on getting the ickiness out once and for all!

Now that he's back at daycare after missing 9 days, his teachers are fascinated at how happy he is and how much he's changed. That's my boy. He still only weighs 22 pounds. Tyler weighed 22 pounds when he was five months old. His two favorite things to do are coloring and playdoh and not coincidentally, his two favorite words are color and playdoh which he says clear as day! His favorite food continues to be cookies, another word he says quite well. He's got Papa Neb's sweet tooth for sure. Well, stay tuned for much more as one of my resolutions is to blog more and make it more interesting. Did you know I could make money by blogging using keywords? If I drive enough traffic to the site and have compelling enough material, I could actually support my web surfing habits. Of course, to make the material compelling, it may have to be exaggerated so we'll see. One dad is making money by running statistics on his blog about each of his kid's diaper changes. People will read anything!