Darr Family Blog

This week was another pretty uneventful week. The weekend? Well, we’ll get to that.

The weather has been pretty warm (high 90s-low/mid 100s), so we haven’t really done too much out of the house. We ventured once to the park (early in the morning), but had to leave before too long because it was getting uncomfortable. Here are some pictures of the park and hanging around the house:

Friday night, we decided to go to a place for dinner because we had some gift cards that our Realtor had given us as a housewarming gift. It’s called Logan’s Roadhouse. The atmosphere was really fun, and the food was really good. Here’s a picture Paul got of me and Joseph:

Now…for the crazy Saturday. It was great until right before nap time. Paul had just set Joseph down in the loft when he (Joseph, that is) decided to run, at top speed, across the loft. I’m not really sure why, but he didn’t stop in time, and ran straight into the edge of Paul’s desk. He got a pretty deep cut directly under his left eye. Paul was able to get the bleeding under control and a Band Aid on it, and I was able to get him calmed down enough to take his nap, but when he got up from his nap and it was still bleeding, we decided it was time for a trip to Urgent Care (enter the part where I’m really grateful for something in Texas that we didn’t have in California: a bunch of different medical clinics and small Urgent Cares that aren’t attached to a major hospital, and most are open 24/7). We went to one that was about 5 miles from our house, and they were able to see him right away. They were able to give him a topical anesthetic (as opposed to having to inject the anesthetic) via holding gauze which was soaked in the anesthetic over the cut for a certain amount of time. Then came the fun part *sarcasm*: they wrapped him in a sheet with me holding his legs, Paul holding his torso, and the nurse holding his head, while the doctor put two stitches in. He didn’t like this one bit, and let us know, quite loudly. He calmed down pretty quickly after we let him free, and stopped crying all together (mid-cry, in fact) as soon as he saw that he was going to get to take a small toy home (he chose a little plastic knight that we think he has started calling either “Silverman” or “Superman” (it’s hard to tell exactly what he’s saying). We took him home to relax after that. We have to go back on Thursday to see if the stitches can come out yet. Thankfully they’ll be open, even on a holiday. We really lucked out with the place that we went to.

Here are some pictures that Paul took while at church today:

And since I always like to leave things on a positive note, here are two videos that Paul was able to get earlier in the week:

This week was a pretty laid-back week. We didn’t really go anywhere or do anything until the weekend (other than grocery shopping and stuff, of course). It was nice to just hang around the house and relax. Joseph found new and exciting ways to use old toys:

He also fell back on a favorite past time:

Now for all the fun stuff:

Joseph is turning out to be more observant than we thought possible. The other day, I went to get him out of his crib after nap time and he noticed something…he noticed that I had changed the color of the polish on my toenails. I opened the door and started walking towards the crib. First he said, “Hi!” (almost always the first thing he says) and then he got all excited and said, “Toes!” repeatedly while pointing at my feet. When I got him out of his crib, he immediately crouched down so that he could get a closer look.

Last Monday, I gave Joseph a small Mickey Mouse stuffed animal. That thing has been his constant companion for almost a week straight now. I don’t know exactly when his love of Mickey Mouse started, but he really loves “da Mouse!” as he calls it:

He’s even gone so far as to make sure that Mickey’s oral hygiene is up to par. The other day, I saw him holding the top of his little blue maraca so that the handle part was free. He told Mickey to “Open mowf” and then he moved the handle back and forth in Mickey’s mouth, saying “Brush teef!” The best part was that both were said in a tone of voice that was almost identical to the one I use when I’m coaxing him to open his mouth so that I can brush his teeth.

Another story about our super-observant boy: A few days ago, we were walking down the stairs when Joseph noticed a small, black speck on the wall (a ding from when we moved furniture upstairs after first moving in). He pointed at it and said, “A spiduh! A spiduh!” Later that same afternoon, he had gotten a hold of a napkin and was squishing it into a crevice in the windowsill. He was using the same hand motions that I had been using when I squished a spider there a few days prior. I have also squished other spiders…I just never realized that he was paying that much attention to me, lol.

Two big milestones this week: We moved Joseph up a size in shoes. Paul and I had both noticed that his shoes were getting a bit snug, but when I realized one day that his toes were practically hanging over the edge of his sandals, I realized that a trip to Payless was in order.  We got him exactly what he had before (church shoes, velcro sandals, and Spiderman tennis shoes), just in the next size up. He’s now wearing size 7 shoes in toddlers. He just keeps growing so fast! The other milestone is that his occupational therapist agrees that we’re okay to stop doing therapy for Joseph’s eating. He’s been eating all table food for a few weeks now, and is no longer pocketing food in his cheeks. He’s also chewing a lot better. We just have to do an exit evaluation (basically for paperwork reasons) and he’ll be done. Way to go, little man!

Yesterday, we went to another farmers’ market. This one is in downtown San Antonio, and is more like a traditional farmers’ market (with a lot of fresh produce and baked goods) as opposed to the market day that we go to in Helotes (closer to home) which is more crafts and stuff. It was nice to walk around, it wasn’t too hot, Joseph loved seeing all the different people and their dogs (there were a LOT of dogs there), and we got some yummy food to take home. It was a nice trip downtown.

Finally, an update on Joseph’s singing. He’s still singing along to a lot of different things, which we find highly entertaining and ridiculously cute. Yesterday, I was changing his diaper and I started singing one of his favorite songs, to which he said, “No, no!” I tried a few other songs, but after a few words in on each of them, I got the same result. Finally, I started singing, “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam”. Not only did he let me sing it, but he started singing along with me! I was surprised with how much he knew (I’d say he knows about 75%). I guess they sing it in Nursery a lot. It’s good to know that he’s getting more out of Nursery than just playing with toys. Now, if we could get him to stop climbing up and standing up on the tables there (quite triumphantly, according to Paul who witnessed it as he picked him up from Nursery today), that would be great. 🙂

This has been quite an enlightening week. Joseph has been growing leaps and bounds when it comes to new words and new things that he’s doing. One thing that I don’t care for is that he is perfecting his climbing skills. The rest of the things are pretty cool. He’s getting more interactive with the T.V.: repeating things, saying things along with characters, etc.

He also started doing something else this week that was pretty sweet: he has started to sing along with things. It started last night when he randomly started singing along with me as I was rocking him before bed. I had a hard time finishing the song (a Primary song) because I felt the Spirit so strongly. I have a feeling that he could feel the Spirit as well. He also sung along with the hymns in Sacrament meeting today, as well as with part of one of the songs that is on one of his favorite shows (Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood). Hearing his sweet little voice singing (granted it was a bit of gibberish mixed with a word here and there) just melts my heart. I love that he loves music!

Another thing he did this week was demonstrate that he can count pretty high. With some assistance, he can get to nine (sometimes ten). He’ll usually leave out one number or another, but I still think it’s pretty cool to hear, “one, two, tee, fo, fibe, sis, sebin…nine…” (the two he normally leaves out are “eight” and “ten”, though he’ll occasionally get those and leave out others).

I can’t even keep track of new words this week: chair, bear, hug, back, see you soon…it goes on and on.

And now for this week’s pictures:

As the title of this blog post suggests, there have been a few hats this week. I didn’t get them all in pictures, just these two. It was pretty funny to hear him saying, “Hat!” and realize that he had devised his own hats. 🙂

One of Joseph’s favorite things to do is climb up on the couch with me when Jeopardy is on. He really likes the music and the applause. He gets really excited when he hears the music and says, “Jep-de! Jep-de!”

He has also discovered a few things: 1) he can get the toys that we are currently storing under the guest bed out and play with them (or try to climb into them…he must still remember that he used to be able to sit in the walker) and 2) he is fully capable of climbing up into the glider…he still hasn’t figured out how to get the glider to move, though he tried really hard.

On Saturday, we went out to eat to celebrate Father’s Day. Joseph was pretty excited about getting to color (the restaurant provided crayons and a coloring page), and he loved eating a bit of my dinner. He’s getting really well at eating table food. His current favorites are chicken nuggets, toast, Honey Buzzers (the Malt o’ Meal equivalent to Honey Comb cereal), and scrambled eggs. He also likes to eat noodles, zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms (cooked), green beans (canned), cheese and goldfish crackers (which we have to limit because out his lactose intolerance), ground sausage, and pretty much anything else we give him.

This morning, we celebrated Father’s Day by giving Paul Joseph’s present (he had already chosen some stuff to upgrade his computer with, so what I gave him this morning was just from Joseph). I made a simple card out of card stock which said “Happy Father’s Day” on the outside. On the inside, I wrote a message from Joseph (expressing the different things he liked to do with Paul) and had Joseph “sign” it (he got to hold the pen as I helped him write the letters in his name). I then let Joseph color it. It turned out pretty cute. We also got Paul his favorite chocolate and some beef jerky (two things he would consider “splurge” items, so I thought they might make for a fun and inexpensive gift).

After a relaxing morning, we went to church as usual. Here are my boys right when Paul dropped Joseph off for nursery (he does the drop-off since I have to scoot to Primary pretty quickly).

After church, we came home and had dinner (roast beef sandwiches using crock pot roast beef; one of Paul’s favorites). We started to go for a walk, but after a bit it just was too warm (I still have to get used to the fact that it stays warm pretty late into the evening here) so we went home and relaxed on the couch.

In a bit of unrelated news, I finally got brave enough to turn on the sewing machine, figured out how to thread it (thank you, YouTube tutorial videos…after literally hours of trying to use the manual, I got it figured out in just minutes. The top threading wasn’t a problem, but the bottom threading was), and made my first project: a little drawstring bag (to hold some little books that Joseph has) that can go in the diaper bag for church. Joseph was super excited when he saw what material I had chosen (Thomas the Tank Engine). Every time he sees the bag, he says, “Thomas, Thomas!”

All in all, another wonderful week in south Texas. 🙂