Facebook and Mac Gallery

Dominic turns 20 months in just 8 days.

I haven't been on the blog in a while, but this time it's not the same ol' reasons.  It's because I've been Facebooking, to use a newly conceived verb.  If you were reading the blog and are not yet my friend on Facebook, please do look me up.  I am actually doing a decent job of posting phone-camera pictures of the baby angel and my musings (many of you will be glad to hear I'm much less wordy there) because it really is about a gadzillion times easier to post there than here.  Although for long stories like my Cindo de Mayo Surprise post, I don't really see a place in Facebook where that should go.  I think you'll find me if you search for Maggie Etheridge Ureno.

Also, I've been updating my Mac photo gallery (http://www.TheUrenos.com) pretty regularly, too.  You can see Easter, Mother's Day, and Dominic doing all sorts of cute firsts and other things.  Very few of the photos/videos are captioned, but I do go back and caption when I have time, so remember to click refresh every time you visit so you'll be sure to see all my hard captioning work (and thus be able to tell what you are looking at).

At my Mac training classes, I've learned how to make a movie, so as soon as I finish the roman shade for window #2 in our bonus room, I'm going to give it a shot and maybe post it to uTube or something and link from Facebook and here.

Thanks again for coming by to see what we're up to!  

What's New with D?

* Sliding on the slide by himself.

* Climbing down the 3-stair set from our living room to our dining room unassisted.

* Still crazy for all kinds of trucks - in books, on TV, and live.  Cement mixer and Fire Engine seem tied for his favorites.  He loves to take his little mini Tonka trucks (as well as the Thomas the Train characters he got from Gram & Granddaddy at Easter) and place them over the matching truck/character in whatever book he sees them in.

* Pointing out by name all the hundreds of Thomas-the-Train characters in the sticker book he picked out on his first trip to the book store. (Mama had to write the names in the book because she can't keep them straight yet!)

* When he points to things that are small or cute, like an ant on the ground, The Grouchy Ladybug in the book of the same name, the baby ducks in the Baby's First Words book, or the little Dalmatian puppy shown next to the fire engine in the lift-the-flap book, he raises his voice to a little squeaky sing-song pitch as if to say "oh look here's a little teeny tiny __whatever__".

* Still seems to prefer footie pajamas despite the evenings getting warmer.

* Definitely falls to sleep better (like in Catalina or when visiting one of the grandma's houses) when he has something musical that he can press a button to play while laying down.  I guess that's what they call "self-soothing".  (Note to moms-to-be: consider putting a Baby Einstein Duck where your baby can learn to press its tummy for a short little symphony.  Dominic used that duck to soothe himself to sleep at an age when I was shocked he had the power or will to control it.  Today, he has 2 devices he can press-for-music attached to his crib railing, and often turns both of them on in a cacophony of clashing lullabies that seem to knock him out like a drug.

* Often must have a Thomas character or truck book with him when going for a walk in his little push-car or for a drive in the carseat.  

* Enjoys crunching on raw carrots and still likes frozen peas right out of the freezer. Will almost never reject bite-sized pieces of cooked chicken breast or a plain shredded wheat.

* Has humungous feet.  Somewhere around here I wrote down his measurements at 18 months.  I'll have to find them and add here.

* Plays with his belly button with one hand while the other is holding his bottle at nap/sleep time.

* Still loves to push a broom or Swifter as well as take just about anything to the nearest trash can when asked.

* Runs; rarely walks.

* Looks like his eyes have settled on a gorgeous golden brown, unlike both Mama's and Daddy's.  

* We have his first coloring projects hanging on the wall in the bonus room.  I was inspired by a Chuck Jones biography on Turner Classic Movies to break out the weeble-like first Crayolas.  I've since gladly discovered they wash quite easily off of upholstery and tabletops. Whew!

Upcoming plans: first trip to the dentist and some sort of swimming lessons.  I've been cutting his hair myself and doing a darned decent job if I do say so myself, except, unfortunately, for the haircut just before an OC Register photographer captured D admiring a pro surfing contestant on the beach (was featured on page 2 of the local section that day - you can go to OCRegister.com and search for "Dominic Ureno" and you can see the picture in color), at which time his hair made him look like a conehead.  Just cut it today again and he looks like a miniature Clark Kent - awww!!!

A Cinco de Mayo Surprise!

It's about noon on Cinco de Mayo, 10 days ago.  Dominic and I are in the front yard digging the weeds out of the little strip of dirt that I'm finally planning to put some flowers in on the north side of our property.  Our 80-year-old neighbor has come out and is helping to rake the flower bed despite my protests - is she just being neighborly or is she, too, sick of looking at the weed fest?  haha.  

Dominic walks to his wagon in the garage where his food bag is (my term for the cooler bag we usually carry his bottles and snacks in).  I figure, since he is now not napping until 1pm these days, that he must want something to eat.  Carrots? no. Graham cracker? no. Banana? no.  *whimper* He rubs his eyes before his little arms reach longingly for the only thing left in the bag: the bottle, and I surmise that all this hard work weeding may have brought on the need for an early nap!

I give him the bottle and his eyes immediately start that rolling-back-into-his-head thing that proves my hypothesis.  I scoop him up and cradle his now 32-lb mass like a little baby and carry him into the house and up the stairs to his room, leaving my elderly neighbor raking alone.  Blinds closed, fish aquarium light out, mobile-less mobile music playing, D melts into the crib mattress with bottle fully engaged.  Once I load the teether and Thomas the Tank Engine into the pockets of the little toy organizer suspended on the crib railing along the wall so he'll have something to do between when he wakes up and when I bound up the stairs to him, I hurry back down to my indentured servant in the garden.  The time is about 12:20.

I show her the monitor and we huddle around it for a couple of minutes.  D is singing his little tongue-rolling-I'm-happy-to-be-relaxing song each time he comes up for air from the bottle (19 months and still not talking, by the way) and slowly kicking his feet. We resume gardening and continue to hear the singing until nearly 1pm.  At 1... silence.  My mind celebrates his slumber.  But alas, about 1:15, new sounds come from the monitor: its the    uuuuunnnnhhh...   uuuuunnnhhh whine that usually means "ok I'm done sleeping; come get me!"  Ugh.  I pray, "Please God, let today not be one of the very few days so far in his life that he skips his nap."  I try to ignore the sound, hoping he will realize it's nap time and lay back down.  No luck.  At 1:30, I look at the monitor and he is fully standing up, griping away.

I stall another 15 minutes.  It wouldn't be the first time that he stood up after finishing a bottle and 5 minutes later was out like a light.  Not today, though.  At 1:45, the griping takes an unhappy turn and I decide I'd better go get him.  

Ok; here's the punch line...

When I opened the door to his room, the smell of baby poo almost knocks me over!  When my eyes stop stinging and start to focus, I begin to see that my little angel has reached into his poopy diaper and what he had pulled out was now all over the crib railing, crib sheet, his clothes (diaper is still on, by the way), his hair, the wall, and the window blinds barely in reach of his crib.  Ay carumba!?! 

Amazing how 2 years ago I would have hesitated to put my hands into that situation without a hazmat suit but now I rush to him and sweep my suffering prince into my arms.  (Yes, now I am poopy too.)  I drop him onto the changing table, strip him nude, and reach for a wet wipe to attack the bulk of the ... uh ... situation.  When I turn to use it, I see his beautiful little peach bottom, pristine and literally "soft as a baby's bottom" just a couple of hours ago, is now raw like hamburger and covered with blisters.  Good grief, what did I feed him that did THIS?  (He did have his first bite of grapefruit that morning, just a bite, but I assure you we won't be eating that again anytime soon!)

So I took the whole mess into the master bathroom and turned on the tub.  Now he's pretty much crying hysterically thanks to my feeble attempt at wet-wiping the solid matter without further injuring his acid-burnt flesh.  Once about an inch of water had accumulated, I tried to get him to sit in it but he screamed out in pain so we switched to an on-the-knees position where he seemed to get immediate relief.  Whew!  I used the little hand shower to gently sprinkle some cool water on his blistered buns with the drain open, and closed the drain again once he seemed clean enough to soak.  Before my very eyes, the little white blisters covering his derriere began to vanish.  He quickly returned to the happy-go-lucky angel boy I see 99.9% of the time.  

As I leave him happily sticking the little rainbow of foam sea creatures to the side of the tub and turn to my mirror to begin my own strip-and-clean act, I am touched by his sweetness.  It must have been during the 1pm silence that this menace had presented itself, yet he tried to take care of it himself before calling out to me gently, as if to say, "Uh, excuse me.  Can someone please come and help me with a little problem?"  It was nearly an hour of him stewing with a pants full of hot coals before he started to elevate his requests: "Helloooo!  Help! Someone save my burning bottom!"

Even covered in poop, I feel really lucky.