I Love This Kid!

Since I recently wrote about some of the naughty things Davis was up to, I thought I should document a few things I love about Davis:

• Davis loves babies, especially our neighbor, Lynlee.  He is always giving her kisses and hugs, and he likes to hold her (although he's not very good at it).

Heather, please can I hold your precious daughter?  I'll take really good care of her.

I like to hold her...

and squeeze her...

and practically smother her with my bulging biceps.

• Davis was playing on the floor with a spatula saying "dick" -- took me a while to realize he was using the spatula to "dig" at the carpet.
• Davis thinks foxes and panda bears are also skunks and say "pee-you" while pointing at them (btw, is there a correct spelling for that sound?).  He also calls both zebras and giraffes "zebras."
• Davis loves music.  He loves to play his toy guitar, and he loves to dance!  Here he is rocking out to mom's ipod:

• He leaves out the "r" when saying "fork" and "shirt."
• He calls milk "moke."
• He calls his ears "eyes" (and he also calls his eyes "eyes") -- used to call them ears, but we wonder if he's had too many people looking in his ears with their eyes (with all his ear infections).
• He wanted to stir the ham fried rice I was cooking a few days ago and whined when I wouldn't let him hold the spoon all by himself.  I had to get him out a new pan and put a few ham pieces in it for him to stir before he calmed down.
• When I tell him to show me a "silly face," he does this:

 

• Even though he can't identify the letters by sight, Davis knows the sounds quite a few of them make (a, b, f, h, i (although he usually says "ick" instead of the short "i" sound), j, k, l, m, o, p, q, s, t).
• He asks every day to play with his grandma and cousins ("EE come," "Abbie come," "Grandma come," "Shelly come"), and asks most days for his friend Ellie to come over too.
• He constantly holds up his arms and says "hold it" or "hold you" instead of "hold me."
• Davis eats 4 crepes in one sitting for breakfast.
• He likes to put his stacking rings on his arm and wear them around.

 

 

• Davis thinks that the color of everything is "green."
• Davis likes to measure things with his measuring tape.  When I ask him how long an item is, he always says "three." (At least he knows he should respond with a number!)
• He calls a guitar a "tar-guh."
• Davis can show you by holding up one finger that he is one year old; however, he insists on putting that finger on his nose while showing you his age.

• He calls a football a "hike" (because the center "hikes" the ball to the quarterback).
• Davis thinks his dad is sleeping in the bedroom even when he's at work.
• He thinks daddy's clothes are really cool:

• Davis pulls a silly face (see above photo) when you say "cheese," but if you say "show me your teeth" he smiles like an angel!
• Davis loves to drink his bathwater.
• He stacks toys on the open slats of the window blinds.
• When he sees pictures/stickers of guitars and violins, he pretends to play them.
• He tries to trace his own hand when drawing.
• He's so handsome!!!

 

 

A Trip to the ENT

Here is the rest of the ear infection story (to date): Davis finished up his last round of ear infection shots on Saturday, January 8th, and his right ear was still infected.  We were lucky enough to squeeze in to see an ear specialist the next Tuesday.  His ears looked clear that day, but given his history the doc thought tubes would be a good idea.  And so, on Thursday, January 13th, Davis got tubes in both ears!  (And when the doc put the tubes in, Davis's right ear was super full of infection again!  You know his ears were really infected when a doc who sees ear infections all the time couldn't believe how much infection was in Davis's ear...)

Davis was a very good patient. Because of our insurance, we got his tubes put in at the Central Utah Clinic instead of the hospital.  But let me tell you, it was a great experience, much more low-key but still very professional.  And it was much less intimidating, especially for a kid!  The only pics I have of that day are these of Davis thoroughly enjoying the legos in the waiting room:

explaining his building project to daddy

Once we got back to the pre-op room, the nurses let Davis play with his anesthesia mask (detached from any sort of tubing, mind you!) for 10 minutes or so.  It made him much less afraid of things.  Then they put him in a big t-shirt (rather than a gown), wrapped him in a warm blanket, and carried him to the operating room.  The nurses said he didn't cry one bit.  Of course, that was until he woke up from the surgery.  Then he screamed like a banshee for 40 minutes (including the whole drive home, wherein we followed a very, very slow driver through a construction zone -- not one of the highlights of my life!).  Once he took a nap, he ran around and was pretty happy the rest of the day.  I'd love to say he's been happy ever since, but he's still a terrible sleeper (unrelated to his tubes).  The end.

For the record, we loved our ENT, and his staff was super, super nice (just like our doc), so if you ever need a recommendation for an ENT, give me a call!

Christmas Pics!

Thanks to my mom, I now have some pictures of Christmas -- thanks, mom!!!

At the Hadfield extended family Christmas party:

Davis was a rogue shepherd 

[yes, those are my arms trying to grab him before he plows into Mary (cousin Abbie)]

 Aunt Amy trying to help Davis choose to keep his head covering on

During the Nativity reenactment, Davis preferred to alternate between dancing around and lying on the floor.  I'm not sure he ever made it to the stable to see baby Jesus.

He helped encourage the other shepherds (cousins Ethan and Brett) to do the same.

Did you know that the shepherds arrived on the scene with helicopters and other toys?

Thanks, mom, for making Davis's super cute costume (and thanks to Aunt Chris for donating the fabric!)  Davis was a pretty cute shepherd -- too bad you couldn't tell from these photos!

Note: All the shepherds carried sheep rather than staffs to prevent injuries.

Our Christmas Eve feast:

an intimate gathering (and a good excuse to use my crystal goblets)

Yes, Davis was there too (minus the crystal).

Russ and I did not sit in the same seat and eat the same plate of food, but he thought I should be in a picture too.

This pic I actually took... you can see how spoiled Davis was, since most of those gifts were for him!

Naughty is spelled D-A-V-I-S

So I actually wrote this post on Monday, but it never got posted, and I can't figure out how to make the date show correctly in the heading...yeah, I'm pretty smart.


It's just been one of those days.  Supposedly psychologists say this is the most depressing day of the year, attributable mostly to weather and post-holiday debt.  I was determined to defy those psychologists.  Davis, however, has had different plans...

He woke up grumpy, and I spent most of the morning just trying to get him to sleep using a myriad of methods.  I tried letting him cuddle with me on the couch and watch "a show." I put him in his crib, where he played for 45 minutes.  As he was getting really sleepy eating lunch afterward, I tried to hold him.  I tried the cuddling/show method again.  Finally, at 1:30, I resorted to a ride in the car.  He fell asleep in less than five minutes.  We sat in our driveway for almost 3 hours while he slept.  His nap was too long, and he woke up grumpy again...

Other activities he's been up to today:

• dumping all of his toys out of multiple containers and then trying to stand on them
• standing on the ottoman, trying to jump to the couch
• standing on the chair at the table while coloring
• standing on the piano chair 

(he obviously has an obsession with standing, and I had to confiscate multiple items that he kept turning into "stools"...)

This photo was taken Sunday before I confiscated his green kitchen stool...at least he's watching the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, right?

• climbing into his toy basket
• jumping in his crib
• shoving whole handfuls of food in his mouth

I thought I would be able to make a really long list, but as I type, I can only think of this cute little kid asleep in his carseat:

My mom always says she "only remembers the good" whenever we ask her questions about our childhood.  I'm beginning to believe her more and more.

Ha, Ha, Ha, Merry Christmas!

Other than an unfortunate incident on Christmas day (see below), we had a great holiday.  Russ took quite a few days off of work between Christmas and New Years, which was fabulous.  We spent a lot of time with family (it was so fun to have my sister, Marie, in town for the week), and although we didn't do a whole lot, we enjoyed being together.

My parents came down for Christmas Eve, and we ate our traditional Cornish hen dinner (which I've had almost every Christmas Eve since I was little).  It was fun to have a quiet evening with my parents.  

Throughout the month of December, we taught Davis that Santa says, "Ho, ho, ho!"  He got really good at saying it and would even point at pictures of Santa and say, "ho, ho."  However, Davis learned on Christmas Day that sometimes Santa says, "Ha, ha, ha."  Davis (and, therefore, his parents) had a rough night of sleeping on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas morning, sometime around 4 am, Davis was still sleeping on my lap when I heard a really bizarre sound coming from his chest.  I realized he was struggling to breathe because of some really sticky phlegm in his throat.  He was able to clear it out by himself, after scaring me to death.  But then he coughed, and I thought he was going to throw up.  He didn't...until 6 am...when he coughed so hard he threw up....while sitting on my lap...watching cartoons.  Poor kid.  He got a Christmas morning bath.  He seemed a little sluggish and grumpy that morning until we fed him breakfast and he became more active.  He was also pretty active playing with his cousins that afternoon.

But by bedtime, he was so cranky and whiny!  He had started pulling on his ear, and I knew what that meant...a 9:30 pm Christmas night trip to Urgent Care! Yep, he had two ear infections!  He went through a 10-day oral medication routine, followed by three days of nasty shots (because the antibiotic hadn't cleared up one of his ears).  When he finished the last shot, his right ear still wasn't cleared up, which meant...a trip to the ENT doc (more on that to come).  Poor little guy!

But back to Christmas...we didn't even take one picture of the day (does that make us failures as parents?); we just took video.  Russ says I can somehow turn that into pictures, but I don't know how to do that, and since it's been a month since Christmas actually happened, I will just have to post without any Christmas day pictures.

Davis was definitely spoiled at Christmas (and not just by Russ and me)-- getting a remote control train, megablocks and a wagon, Toy Story potato heads, these cool animal fridge magnets, a guitar, this MP3 player, and a few other items.  I have, of course, hidden a few items to pull out over the coming months to keep my sanity...

Since Davis has loved watching me cook so much, we got him a kitchen for Christmas (and I may have gone overboard in purchasing play food and other kitchen items...).  He loves it!!!  (Please note that he did get bread for his toaster, even though he is putting hamburger patties in the toaster in these pictures...)

Note: I was hoping that by getting him this kitchen, he wouldn't beg me to hold him every time I cook.  This has not been the case.  I am still working my biceps regularly by holding him every time I do anything in the kitchen that could remotely be construed as cooking...