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My Top 5: This is Deven’s Favorite Post.

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This Texas summer, as you all know, was intensely hot. Aside from our vacation to South Padre, we really didn’t spend any time outside, for fear of heat stroke, or just drying up like a contact lens left on a counter top. Really was anyone’s guess what would happen to you first if you spent too much time out there. So we spent the majority of the summer inside,all piled on the couch in the living area watching Tv. Or rather, letting the tv babysit while mommy took care of the baby, or cleaned the house, or tried to find other ways to suppress the overwhelming boredom that comes with staying indoors for weeks on end.

Obviously, this didn’t bother Deven. He watched Toy Story 3 and Cars thousands of times, and memorized just about every word from those movies so that he could get get his action figures and reenact his favorite moments. He also watched hours and hours of the same 3 Yo! Gabba Gabba dvds. He watched them so many times, mommy began to feel sick every time certain segments would begin. And then Netflix put up Yo! Gabba Gabba for instant viewing , which expanded our selection of episodes quite a bit, and helped with the queasiness. Of course, we watched all of those a few dozen times, and now I am right back to feeling queasy every time I hear “Jumpy Jump Jump.”

It really isn’t that bad. Yo Gabba Gabba is made to be entertaining to kids as young as one year old without driving the parents completely insane. The show is made to be a sort-of throw back to kids shows from the seventies, to give older parents (haha, OLDER PARENTS. BORN IN THE SEVENTIES. THATS OLD.) a sense of nostalgia. The music they use in the show is modeled after modern hip-hop as well as music from the 80′s (for us less-older parents.) But, even thats not enough to keep parents from losing their shit eventually, so they’ve incorporated the Super Music Friend Show, where they invite indie and even popular bands to perform kid-friendly songs.

This has totally saved my sanity. When the right song comes on, I drop whatever it is I am doing so I can jam out along with my kid. I’ve even discovered bands through this show. What other kids shows do you know of allow you that much, parents?

For those of you who have never seen Yo! Gabba Gabba, or for those of you standing next to you tv with a baseball bat in hand, I present my Top 5 Yo! Gabba Gabba SMFS clips.

1. Chromeo: “Nice and Clean”

This clip is single-handedly responsible for my current Chromeo obsession. It’s a dorky hipster with a guitar, and a guy with a keyboard and a talkbox making incredibly funky 80′s electro music. I challenge you to hand over something cooler.

2. The Roots: “Lovely Love My Family”

COME ON. IT’S THE ROOTS.

3. Shiny Toy Guns: “House of Spooks”

There are 2 things about this clip I LOVE: how excited Tony the Tiger on Drums seems to be, and the fact that I can’t tell if they painted that guy’s face yellow to match the banana costume, or if he just has a bad case of jaundice.

4. Of Montreal: “Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast”

I love how cool the lead singer is, as well as how obvious it is that no one is actually playing their instruments.

5. The Salteens: “I’m So Happy”

This song is so catchy and cute, I actually feel happier after listening to it.

Deven’s pick

Jimmy Eat World “Beautiful Day”

You know I couldn’t talk about my kid’s favorite show without asking him what he thinks. Deven actually runs around the house singing “It’s a beautiful day, you’re my best fwend, and I love you…” He also insists on us talking about how the guys are standing on doggies and kitties every time we watch it.

There you have it. It was really hard to narrow the list down to 5 songs. I almost had to make a second list. And they keep making new episodes, so I am sure eventually I will have to make a second list.

 

He’s four now.

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Hi! Sorry no update-y. I told everyone how excited I was about Deven’s birthday last week, and then I never bothered to tell anyone how it went. See? This is why I fail at this whole blogging thing.

So, yeah. Deven turned 4 on Sept 16. The day itself was like any other, except they had a mini-party at school for him where they sang “Happy Birthday” and ate cookies that I provided for the class. He came off the bus with a cute little crown around his head that said “Deven is 4!” in like 10 different places on the crown. He was really excited. I let him open one of his presents. And then we sat around, played toys, watched tv, and waited for his grandmother to arrive so I could go to work. It went better than the year before, when I insisted on making it a super-special day, all about him, and it ended with me dragging a screaming toddler out of Build-A-Bear. Soooo was not going to do that again.

On Saturday, we had a little party for him. His grandmother and my brother were the only guests. We decided to not to throw a huge production this year since we still haven’t completely put the pieces back together (or cleaned our house) since having baby Archer. I think he was fine with it, since he still got a tonne, not kidding, a  metric ton of presents. Okay, so maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but he seriously got a lot of presents, possibly too many for  a single little kid. But when it comes to birthdays, I don’t believe you can get too much stuff or attention. It’s the one day a year when everything should revolve around you (within reason.)
Opening presents!
Presents!
Deven opening presents.

I have always been believed that birthdays were where it’s at, especially if your kids has siblings. Everyone needs a day where they celebrate the fact that they were born and get to be alive. Kids don’t see it that way, but thats okay. Christmas is whatever. In our family we celebrate it almost out of habit, because our other family members celebrate it and we celebrated it our entire lives. Deven loves the decorations, and you know what? SO DO I. We aren’t Christians, it’s just that Christmas is fucking fun, and we can’t see ourselves not celebrating it. It probably makes us hypocrites, but I couldn’t care less. I went ahead and gave up Easter, can’t that be enough?

ANYWAY.
Deven's Cars cake

We ate pizza, and then we cut into Deven’s expensive grocery store cake. This cake, as cute as it was, almost made me puke from it’s intense sweetness. It’s leftovers, which were thrown out 2 days ago, are also responsible for my current case of gastritis. I probably won’t be buying anymore cakes for anyone’s birthday, ever. I can make a cake for much cheaper that won’t cause my stomach to attempt to break its way out of my body. And everyone loves that rustic, home-made look when it comes to cakes, yes?

My mind is a little blown when I think about how much Deven has changed and grown over the last year. In the last year he’s started school, made new friends, learned to use the potty like a big boy, pedal a bike, he became a big brother, and can count to 20-10 (which is 30).

He has also become the most stubborn little turd on the planet, like, EVEN WORSE THAN BEFORE. He has to ARGUE with everything anyone ever says to him. If you tell him to do something, he’ll shoot right back with “No, I’m NOT gonna do dat!” AS HE IS DOING EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS TOLD TO DO. Four. I think this might be my favorite age.

And then my heart hurts  when I think about how he has changed over the last 4 years. I hold Archer, and it kills me a little inside that I can barely remember what it felt like to cuddle baby Deven. I can’t remember feeling his weight, or tickling him and hearing his laugh, I can barely remember nursing him, I don’t at all recall his sweet baby-smell. Now he is big, and he never wants to cuddle anymore, even when I am not holding his baby brother and can cuddle him. I feel like as a mom, I am the most connected to my children when they are babies. Now Deven is big, and wants to play in the dirt, and whine, and argue, and eat pizza, and I barely know what to do with him half the time. I am insecure about my ability to be a mom because I know how to kiss boo-boos and snuggle, and Mr. Independent doesn’t even need that. The guilt I feel when I am holding and enjoying Archer is unreal. I feel like I am losing my oldest baby.

Vance was right when he said he would have more fun with him when he got older. He definitely gets Deven more now that they can go outside and pee on the fence together.

But I have to grow right along with him as a parent. Now I have to learn to engage him, get on the floor with him and play his silly games with his Toy Story toys. I have to listen to him, and make sure he knows that he is heard, and that what he has to say is important to me. I have to teach him to take responsibility for his actions,  the importance of keeping his room clean, and brushing his teeth.

Now the hard work of shaping little boys into men begins.

 

 

 

 

 

Five down

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Guess who turns 5 months old today?

Daaw, breh

He would not smile for pictures. Besides, this is a very accurate portrayal of his temperament lately. Well, half at least. He is either melting down into a puddle of tears and screams, or he is exploding with smiles and giggles. Really not much in between.

As of his last check-up, which was 2 weeks ago, he was 16 1/2 lbs, and 23.5″ long, which is rather short. Below the 5%, in fact. So he is a round, dense little peanut. He still has the shortest legs I have ever seen. It’s almost worrisome, they’re so short, but then I recall how his daddy’s inseam is shorter than mine, even though he is 6 inches taller than me. Sorry, kid. Also, at his previous check-ups, his head was also on the smaller side, around the 35-50%, but since then, his head has had a bit of a growth spurt. He’s now in the 50-75% for head circumference. How does your head suddenly become big? And I call bullshit. Someone incorrectly measured something.  If he really had a big head, neither of us would have fared so well during the pushing stage. But whatever. Better now than before he came out, right?

He is moving right along in the development department. He still can’t roll over back-to-front, which I swore he would be doing by now, but that could just be because he is so round. But whatever. I don’t pressure him. He can do other neat things, like pass objects from hand to hand, fake cry, take his binky out of his mouth and put it back in, and I swear he tries to crawl when he is on his stomach. It never turns out well, and I try to tell him, you are missing a step or two, kiddo. He’ll get there soon, and then we’ll be in big trouble.

We have not started the solids yet. He is still on a healthy diet of mom’s milk, supplemented with formula that I swear smells like mildew mixed with plastic. I can’t imagine it tastes good, but he doesn’t complain, he just eats. But we are so getting ready for it. I’ve decided to make his baby food. I went shopping at Sprouts for the finest organic goods, and bought these storage cases for freezing the food, and I straight-up pureed him some mother-fucking baby food. I plan on sharing the details of how all this was done in a later post. I feel like super woman again. I can make his food with my body, and my cheap food processor. Fuck yeah.

Bed time around here is insane. He doesn’t get adequate naps during the day, because as soon as his big brother sees him snoozing in his bouncy seat, he can’t resist the urge to run up to him and put his hand in his mouth and smother him with kisses. Also, if Deven screams, or makes any loud noise, which is pretty much all of the time, he wakes up. So by 7, he is running on fumes, and like last night, he’ll go from kicking his legs and flailing his arms, and smiling and giggling like a crazy person, to screaming inconsolably. Vance and I are passing him back and forth until he just gives up and passes out. He’ll usually sleep until about 1, and then some how he ends up in the bed with me. At first I was adamantly against him sleeping in my bed, because we had such difficulty breaking Deven of that habit, but I think I prefer this. He sleeps for longer stretches, and he gets to cuddle, and, oh yeah, I get to sleep. I can’t, with all I am doing these days, argue with that. We’ll worry about sleep training when he’s weaned.

What else?

He does this funny thing only in the mornings where he’ll stick his finger, or my nipple, in his mouth and “talk.” I don’t understand why, but it’s hilarious, and very cute. And I haven’t gotten it on video yet because who is thinking about whipping out a camera to record something first thing in the morning? Sure as hell ain’t me.

During the day, his “talking” comes out more like this:

 

After watching this video, my friend pointed out how  apparent his love for his big brother is. It’s true. After me (thats right, I’m the favorite), Deven is Archer’s favorite person, even though he wakes him up from his naps, and will sometimes do mean things like bite him and yank on his arms, he still thinks he is the funniest little person in the whole world. I know this probably won’t last; once Archer turns two and starts following Deven around, and wanting to do all of the things Deven wants to do, that the fighting will likely start. But right now, all I want to do is savor all of these sweet moments between brothers.

 
Also, a big fat mazel tov to Rebecca on the birth of her twin girls! Twice the love and snuggles!