Darr Family Blog

We had a couple of fun things happen this week. One of the first things that happened was that we were able to have a guy come in and tune the piano:

We found out that the piano was made between 1940 and 1950, and that it was professionally restored (on the inside). The guy said that it was probably thousands of dollars of work. He was really impressed…and so were we, considering that we got it for less than $400! Joseph was very interested in watching the piano tuner do his work. Sometimes a little too interested, lol. We had to keep him out of the guy’s tool kit. 🙂

The rest of the week was spent in just hanging around the house, doing our regular stuff. Joseph has figured out how to climb up onto the couches on his own (as well as the padded bench that we have near the entry-way). He still likes to sit in his little chairs, though (when he’s not climbing them, that is):

Friday marked Joseph’s 20-month mark. It’s hard to believe that he’s going to be 2 so soon! I keep on imagining his as my little rollie-pollie baby boy, but he isn’t anymore. He’s a full-fledged toddler. He continues to exert his independence and opinion (to put it nicely, lol), pop out new words when we least expect (this week: mouth, ears, toes), and find new places to explore:

Yesterday was our busiest day by far. We got up and got ready to head out to the farmer’s market/street fair that Old Town Helotes puts on once a month. We ended up getting stuck in traffic that was full of people trying to find a parking space for the parade that was being held that morning (apparently this weekend was Helotes’ annual Cornyval…don’t ask me the origins of the name, I have no idea why it’s called that). We ended up turning around and heading back home. On the way back, we stopped at Lowe’s so that Paul could get some stuff to organize the garage. While Joseph was napping, he worked really hard, putting up some shelves (at workbench height) and a rack (mounted to the wall) to better organize the shovels, brooms, etc. It has freed up a lot of space in the garage and things are much more accessible. It looks great! After Joseph woke up, we headed back out to try hitting up Old Town again. This time it was much better, since the parade crowd had gone home. We enjoyed walking around, looking at all the crafts and things. After that, we ran home to feed Joseph and then headed out for an evening of fun. We ate dinner at Chipotle, went out to Sea World for an hour or so, and then grabbed shakes from Whataburger on the way home. I love days like that where we get to spend so much time together as a family. It really makes the day awesome!

The above picture pretty much sums up our week. Nothing too eventful happened, we just plugged through the week. On Monday, I took Joseph over to one of my friends’ house to play while the adults did a craft. We took little books (my friend found them in the dollhouse furniture section of the craft store) and turned them into earrings. It was a super fun and easy craft. Here’s the result:

Joseph had so much fun playing with the other kids outside (even though he got knocked over by the swing, which I didn’t realize at first since he didn’t cry. I saw him go down, but he got right back up again, so I didn’t realize he’s gotten hit. I went to check on him later and he had a giant goose-egg on his head, so my friend gave me a home-made ice-pack to put on his head…luckily he didn’t seem to suffer any ill effects from it at all)! He got so dirty playing (a sure sign of a good time) that when we got home, I took one look at his outfit and just decided to change all of it. I have a feeling that I’m going to have to get used to him getting dirty, lol.

The rest of the week was full of the ordinary stuff like grocery shopping, cleaning, etc. Joseph is really into helping me with stuff right now. I think I mentioned it in my last post, but he was super excited to help me mop (he held onto the mop while I pushed it around and kept one hand on him so that he wouldn’t slip), and he now expects me to have him help put away the groceries (though I have to be careful how I let him help me. He discovered not too long ago that glass baby food jars shatter when thrown at the floor…I think he thought it would bounce…not so much) and he loves to help put away his toys. Another thing he loves to do is help wipe up things (usually the fridge door and floor right by the door where water has been known to spill if I don’t get the lock on the water dispenser enabled fast enough…I remember the time that I found out he could reach the water dispenser. I was washing dishes, and I could hear him playing behind me, in the general area of the fridge. I then heard a splash of water, followed immediately by a little gasp. I turned in time to see him staggering away from the fridge with water dripping down his face and front…we keep the dispenser locked all the time now. Best invention for a fridge with the in-door water dispenser, ever!).

Funny moments for the week: well, this one has been going on for a bit, but I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it. When Joseph sees Blue’s Clues on the TV (even if it’s just the little square showing the show on our Netflix Instant Que), he says, “A clue, a clue!” He will also say this whenever he happens to see paw prints anywhere. He still likes to bark when he sees dogs around the neighborhood (when we go on walks) or on TV. The other funny moment was when he saw Thomas the Tank Engine on TV. He looked very excited, and said, “Oh, Thomas!” as if he were excited and relieved to see Thomas on the TV. 🙂

Cute/Awesome moment for the week: I was reading Joseph “The Napping House” which is a repetitive book (kind of along the lines of “This is the House that Jack Built”). It’s about a napping house where everyone (the granny, child, dog, cat, and mouse) is sleeping (all stacked on the bed). While they are asleep, it’s raining outside and the colors of the pictures are all in blues and purples. During this part, Joseph was really quiet and somber. The second half of the book starts with a flea biting the mouse, who wakes up and then the rest of the characters are woken up one at a time by the character that had been stacked on top of them. As they each wake up, the rain stops and the colors in the pictures get progressively brighter and more varied. As we progressed through this part of the book, Joseph got a small smile on his face that just got bigger and bigger as we turned each page. By the time that we got to the end of the book (the most brightly colored page), he had the biggest smile on his face! It was so cute to see him getting into the story. He amazes me each and every day!

The end of our week went out with a bang (a whole lot of them, actually) as well as a light show. We had one of our amazing thunderstorms last night. I’m still getting used to sheet lightning and big booms. I’m really starting to love Texas thunderstorms, though. The power and intensity is mind-boggling. It made for a great end to the week (especially since we’ll take whatever rain comes our way)!

This week really has been splendiferous…there really is no other way to describe it. Joseph continues to amaze me on a daily basis. Sometimes it’s good (like when he was watching Super Why, which is a show on PBS that focuses on spelling, vocabulary, and phonics, and he was able to recognize the letters “R” and “S” as well as the picture of the apples…hearing his little voice triumphantly say, “appo!” was one of the best feelings) and sometimes it’s bad (I made the mistake of allowing him to ride in the race-car shopping cart at Lowe’s the other day and he threw the HUGEST fit when we left the cart behind to go home…he was crying, head-butting me as I was carrying him…it was BAD). Paul and I are finding that we are really having to start being firm about discipline so that when he does throw fits (which, in reality, are few and far in-between) we are united in how we handle them. He’s still a bit to young to reason with, so we focus on distractions. If he starts to pitch a fit, we try to distract him with music, a game of patty-cake or peek-a-boo, or (his favorite, so far) chase him around the house (with, “I’m gonna get you!). We are really blessed with the fact that when he does get upset, he tends to calm down and get over it pretty quickly. It sure makes it easier.

Another thing that made this week great was Joseph’s first meeting with his occupational therapist (who is working with us to get Joseph to chew his food better so that we can continue the transition from pureed food to table food). She came to the house and played some games with him and then was there as I fed him lunch to see how he was doing with his eating. He was really tired by the time lunch finally came, since the appointment took place right before nap time (usually I feed him at 11 and then he goes down for a nap right after that…the appointment didn’t start until 11) and he didn’t want to stop playing with the toys to eat lunch (a major fit ensued and lasted through lunch). Needless to say, next time, he’s going to eat lunch first and then play. Lesson learned, lol. The therapist did say that he’s made some improvements and to basically keep doing what we’ve been doing with him. He’s gotten a lot better about snacks…he used to take one cracker and just hold it in his mouth until it got soft enough to swallow. Now, I can see him make a conscious effort to chew a little bit. He powered through twice as many snacks than I thought he would at church today. He probably would have eaten more, but we ran out (note-to-self: pack more snacks next week).

The last big thing with Joseph that happened this week was that we switched out his clothes to the next size up. So, even though he’s not yet 2, he’s in size 3T. The clothes are a bit long and loose, but it’s better than them being too tight. He’s just growing so fast!

In other news, I expressed the desire for some outdoor plants. Paul decided that instead of going the quick and easy way about it (plastic planter), he’d make a planter box for me (he wanted a nicer-looking planter, which I agreed with). He picked up some cedar fence boards and sawed and nailed away (it was still relatively quick…I think it only took him an hour or so to do it and it saved us quite a bit of money with supplies). The result was a very beautiful planter box. I almost didn’t want to put anything in it! We then went and picked out some succulents (my favorite type of outdoor plant…very hardy, practically impossible to kill) and he planted them for me while I watched Joseph. It looks amazing!

The rest of the pictures are basically what Joseph’s been up to. 🙂

I can hardly wait to see what adventures unfold this next week!