Day 42-- Musical Ambitions

Yes, this is the long-anticipated forty-two in "Forty-two days" As I mentioned yesterday, because of the way Sabrina's birthday fell on Friday, it'll stretch to 45 days with the 3-day weekend.

Edgar gave me some trouble last night. He woke up about 3 times in the middle of the night, and each time, I would come to his rescue with a bottle and some comfort, he refused my help and stubbornly repeated, "I want Mommy!" over and over and over again.

Mommy came to his rescue the first time. We think he may have a little bit of a cold. After the first time, it wasn't funny. I would sit for 10 or 15 minutes in his room, enduring the I-want-mommy verbal assault over and over again, then I'd leave, set the alarm for 15 or 20 minutes later, and turn off the baby monitor. In the intervening 15 or 20 minutes, he'd cry himself to sleep, but that's tough on parents and kids.

Well, tonight, he'll be forced to break out of his mommy-preference. Mommy is taking a girls weekend with Becky upstairs and friends. So, it's just Daddy and Edgar in the house tonight.

The terribly interrupted sleep, combined with some pretty bad cat-allergy-triggered asthma left me groggy and knocked out all day. On a day where I should've been cleaning up from our Kalaloch trip, helping my wife pack for her girls' weekend, I found myself doing just the bare minimum that was needed to maintain life and parental function. Edgar watched a lot of TV today.  Jen picked up the slack. As edgar says, "Mommy supergirl!"

Edgar also had a very musical day. This is him playing organ after first waking up:

No, I don't understand the name of his song.

Later, he tried recorder. As you can see, he doesn't quite get the concept yet. He plays it like a kazoo, singing into the recorder, and getting it to whistle along with his breath.

Still later, he asked me to work on a duet with him. He handed me our (in need of tuning and repair) melodica, and played his trusty recorder.

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on Flute!"

Jen and Sabrina got out the door this afternoon. Edgar and I spent the evening snuggled on the couch watching Signing Time and He-man. It was a pretty low-key day.

With Jen gone, and my car still (!) in the shop, I don't know what's in store for tomorrow. I've got some awesome ideas, but all we have is a bicycle and lots of ambition.

Day 33-- Zoo and a Hot Stove

My daughter has some special talents. She doesn't say much or move around much, but she's like a homing pigeon when it comes to nipples. Even non-functional ones. Pick her up, and within 20 seconds, somehow she's managed to get into a situation like this:

My son has some special talents, too. I don't know what he was dreaming about, but when we woke him up this morning, he said "Edgar want to play organ!" ...uh... okay.

This is him working my guitar pedals with his feet while rocking out on the organ. I believe he was playing and singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

We went to the zoo today!

It was a beautiful day, although a bit cold. After doing a bit of research, Jen and I decided that buying a zoo membership was a really smart way to go. Now, we get into the zoo free for the next 12 months. We also get to bring one guest for free and get discounts on other guests, so if you want to go to the zoo with us, hit us up! Also, we get discounts or free admissions at lots of other zoos nationwide, including the Winston Wild Animal park (We're planning a trip for next month), and the Salt Lake Zoo.

We saw all sorts of animals. For the first little bit, Edgar kept asking "Zoo is?" (Edgarspeak for "where's the beef... I mean zoo?) I wonder what he was expecting.

Edgar was very excited to see all the animals. Close up encounters with bears, bald eagles, beavers and ducks (!), otters, tigers, orangutans, elephants, you name it...

Jen, Edgar, and Mama cougar. We watched Baby cougar tackle Mama cougar.

Watching the otters in their den. Edgar tried to kiss them a couple of times.

Driving a tractor.

The Amur Leopard was our last stop on the way out. Edgar didn't want to leave.

Sabrina, on the other hand, stayed snuggled up as a pappose on my chest in the baby bjorn. It was very sweet. It's surprising how little she weighs.

This is what I saw all day.

The kids were hungry and ready for a nap, but we weren't worried: with our new zoo membership, we can go back often, so there was none of the compulsion that I usually have of we-have-to-see-everything-today...


Edgar surprisingly stayed awake for the drive home. This was very good news: We could all nap inside. Edgar picked out a CD to listen to during his nap (part of the new routine). In keeping with the zoo theme, he chose this Talking Heads album:

Upon seeing the monkey on it, Edgar declared, "I love this CD!"    ...someday in the future, dad will introduce him to Remain in Light.

Edgar woke up from his nap with a solid half hour of crying "I want-a mommy!" A solid half hour in which he wouldn't let me hold him or pick him up (or shove a bottle in his mouth to plug the sound). Finally, after about 35 minutes, he changed his tune to "I want-a He-Man Movie. I want-a Daddy. I want-a He-Man Movie." before switching back to Mommy. At that point, he was willing to let me pick him up, so we watched some He-Man.

I cooked his dinner-- hot corn and a hard-boiled egg, by request. Edgar wanted to supervise cooking from a stool. After the egg was done, I turned off the stove, and turned around to rinse and cool the egg. While my back was turned, I heard Edgar yell.

He had burned his hand on the still-hot stove. It immediately blistered. I got it under cold water immediately, and got him settled, still screaming for Mommy. Jen arrived on the scene and helped comfort him, and consulted all the online stuff about what to do in case of a burn. We're not too concerned. All kids go through something like this, and we're darn lucky that it wasn't worse. It did make a good teaching moment, and I doubt he'll ever touch a hot stove again. I wish he'd take our word for things, but I'm afraid this will be a pattern with this boy.

Once the blisters had raised, I could see that he burned the four fingers on his left hand. We got him a bowl of cold water to soak his hand in, and let him eat his dinner and watch TV:



We kept it cold for quite a while, wrapped his hand in gauze, and put a mitten over it for him to sleep. It was a tough night, between an in-pain, acting-up Edgar and his fussy sister, and two exhausted parents. Here's hoping he sleeps through the night.