Dressing a toddler, redux

(Originally posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 by Cathy)

Welcome to the end of the first week of classes insanity. Between the /usual/ insanity and the fact that we had a snow day (causing me to miss my first lab meeting), and the fact that we had a job candidate (whose visit coincided with the snow day and whose visit got crammed into one 15 hour Friday as a result), my goal for this morning was to sleep in. I've failed, apparently, although Dalton seems to be having a go of it.

So I think what we've concluded after Tim's last post is that no one is actually looking at the photos all that closely, or maybe you're all in denial. (Or maybe, you've given up on us ever posting regularly and stopped looking!) Did /no one/ notice that our son is wearing women's underwear (mine, clean at the time, at least) in that last photo? Not one email from a concerned reader. Not one!

How many Ph.D.s does it take to dress a toddler?

(Originally posted on Sunday, January 13, 2008 by Tim)

So we are going through a new phase in our house. It is the ?I don?t want to wear clothes phase.? This would be a great game for July, but apparently we?re just not that lucky. At the beginning, Cathy was able to convince him to allow himself to be clothed by pointing out all the cool animals and construction equipment that was present on the clothing. ?Look at the septic tank truck, do you want to wear the septic tank truck?? Unfortunately, like many of our devious parental tricks, Dalton developed an immunity in a couple of days. Putting on any clothing is now a monumental effort in distraction combined with advanced judo techniques. It?s so difficult that we were considering putting our yogurt soaked son straight to bed tonight and washing the sheets tomorrow because it would be less effort.

Other than the aversion to apparel, Dalton is doing well. He had his 18 month birthday a couple of days ago. Cathy?s Mom (who is a speech therapist) said that he should have 50 words by that date. I?m happy to report that he?s been learning a word or two a day and probably had 60. We stopped listing them when we had safely hit the 50 mark. Today?s word is ?sit?. I was entertaining him by having a dog sit and then come when called. It?s actually remarkably close to the real word. You would probably understand it without parental translation.

As part of the beginning of a new year, I have kicked off my 2nd annual New Year?s resolution list. I made a list last year, but was so bad about posting that it never made the blog. These lists contain about three items that are reasonably to achieve. They don?t contain items I am going to do anyway, things that I know to be impossible, or both of these. Last year?s list was as follows:

1. Work out three times a week. (I made it through April I think)
2. Do something social at least once a month. (Yes we really are that lame. We did make this one if you count family events, which I do.)
3. Ummmm?I forget.

This year?s list is somewhat similar.

1. Work out three times a week.
2. Write at least one social email per day.
3. Post to the blog at least once every two weeks.

So far, I?m on track for all three resolutions. I?ll have to see if I can keep it up once I?m back to work and the semester gets into full swing.

Holiday Fun

(Originally posted on Sunday, January 6, 2008 by Tim)

We are into our last week off before school starts again. It has been a good break. I have to say I definitely approve of the academic calendar. We gave up on visiting both Florida and Minnesota this year. The new system has us visiting each side of the family every other year. This year was my parent?s turn. They had a good time seeing Dalton. This post?s picture is of him playing their piano.

Since we were in Minnesota, we also visited our good friend Kris. He introduced us to a new (well, we hadn?t seen it before) game called Hex Hex. It was a lot of fun and very fast (about 10 minutes a game). This is perfect for when the baby is asleep and might wake and call for Mom at any minute.

We did our usual thing for Holiday cards this year in that we started them on December 15th. Being on the college schedule, we are insanely busy for the first two weeks of December with writing, giving, and grading exams. I expect that we?re not ever going to manage to get cards out to people before Christmas.

Picking out cards was an interesting exercise this year. I?ve discovered that if you place enough preconditions on your Holiday card selection, that your choice of card is made for you. I had four things that were important in our cards this year.


1. The cards couldn?t say Christmas on them. This allowed us to continue the fiction that they aren?t late every year.

2. The cards need to be big enough to contain a 4? x 6? picture of the cutest toddler on the planet.

3. The cards needed to be printed somewhere other than China (U.S.A. preferred). Call this our little contribution to maintaining the United States status as the world?s only superpower. If you take your heart medicine and have a good imagination, you can believe that this makes a difference.

4. The cards needed to be purchased at Books-A-Million. I bring Dalton to Books-A-Million for his nap on Thursdays and push him in his stroller around the store. That nap time is precious (and I read their comic books without paying) so I try to buy everything I can there. Just imagine what a loyal customer I would be if they were to fix their squeaky, toddler waking, bathroom door.


By the time I finished applying all four conditions, I had one choice left for Holiday cards. They weren?t quite our style, but they had a nice Thomas Kinkade winter scene on them and they met all four of my criteria.