Year: 2012

We had a wonderful week in Vermont and a fabulous Christmas holiday. Hope yours was filled with lots of joy and cheer as well 🙂 Ashton got lots of practice opening presents and by his 822nd one, he was really quite efficient. I have approximately zero good pictures because he was like an unwrapping tasmanian devil – a total blur. But he gave us something better than pictures – his first word(s)! I am stating for the official record that his first word was “Ball”. He holds them or points at them and exclaims “Ball!” loudly and proudly.

Fa la la la laaa la la la laaaaaa. It’s almost Christmas! For those wondering how we gear up for the most wonderful time of the year, I thought I’d present a little “Nill Holiday How-To”.

Step 1. MEET SANTA. Look jolly and cheerful.

Step 2(a): GET A TREE.

If it were up to Jason, we’d go like the Griswolds from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and cut a tree the size of a small building with our bare hands. Thankfully, it’s not up to Jason and there are lots of Home Depots around that take care of that. So off we went last Sunday – Jason had his pocket knife, his gloves, and his “weekend Dad shirt” on and he meant business. Ashton of course had no idea what was happening but was thrilled to find branches, a very long string and some mud to play around in. Home Depot = fun for everyone.

Step 2(b): DECORATE THE TREE. Help with the lights, as long as “help” is defined as wrapping them around your body and tugging at the strands so Dad has to redo everything.

Hi readers,

I haven’t been the best at blogging lately. Between Aruba, Thanksgiving, selling our condo (yes, we sold!) and trying to find a new house, busy work schedules…well it sounds like I’m all excuses doesn’t it. Ashton hit the big 1-6 a few days ago, hence letting him careen around on the turtle in the below video. 16 has also brought more pointing, more babbling, and a continued love for playing with inappropriate things.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

We have just taken our first official family vacation, planes and suitcases and everything. How did it go? Awesome! Myself, Jason, Ashton and our condo had a fantastic time. We had a nightmare travel day on the way back, complete with delays, plane electrical issues, missed connections, etc. but Ashton was a little star. Sleepwise, there were a few nights he was up at 3 am crying. When I checked on him, I was shocked to discover he had put on his swim trunks and was standing in his crib clutching his floatie and snorkel, all ready for the beach. I had to tell him it wasn’t quite the time. Those were tough nights but overall, we couldn’t have asked for a better week. Ahhh, Aruba. Land of white beaches, warm water, sparkling sunshine and…pointing. What? Yes. Ashton didn’t even know what to do with himself there was so much pointing going on. He started off with a kind of half-point:

And then quickly graduated to ocean points, in-your-face points, and my favorite, the on-the-balcony-and-behind-the-back point. Collect them all!

At one point (no pun intended), I joked that I hoped the dark spot in the water he seemed to be indicating was not a shark. Ha ha. Um but then I didn’t swim at that particular snorkel spot. I am a firm believer that children can teach us a thing or two and perhaps danger in the ocean is one of them.

There was of course lots of fun in Aruba besides pointing. Because we had such a big group, we all did our own thing during the day at times and then met up at the lazy river at 4 pm for floating and cocktails. After that, showers, big dinners every night in our villa or out on the town, and then the beach bar or the casinos! I admit we got into quite the vacation routine, complete with Jason’s eggs every morning. There was an afternoon cruise/snorkel trip, shopping, pool time, beach time, tuna sandwiches, frozen drinks with way too many calories…heaven. Thanks so so much to Poppy (my dad) and Mema for making the trip happen and getting us all together. I have far too many pictures (ahem, 580 to be exact) to post them all here, but my dad always says that if you come away from a vacation with just one or two good ones that’s all you need. So, in the interest of moderation, these are my family favorites:

Aruba Ariba! Now it’s on to the next…trading the sun and sand for turkey and stuffing – off to make my Thanksgiving list and hit the hay. Good night!

Time for a vacation. Yes, that’s right. The Nill family is getting on an airplane and taking things tropical. We are headed to Aruba with quite the crew: Poppy and Mema, Amy/Jason/Brody/Mckenna, and Kari and Ben. We made the exact same trip 5 years ago when Jason and I had first started dating:

Ahhhh to be young and in love.  The beach, the pool, the lazy river, sunshine and cool breeze were pretty unbelievable. And now we are going back – woo! Except it has taken me weeks to pack this time around. I have googled just about everything in a desperate search for survival tips on air travel with a toddler. I made Jason buy an iPad. I have just finished wrapping lots of teeny tiny gifts for Ashton to open on the plane. I stole a stack of post-it’s from work (apparently popular with small children), got stickers and new snacks and assembled what I like to call the “Heavens to Betsy, please Ashton be interested in something in this bag for more than 8 seconds” kit. If that doesn’t work, I have downloaded lots of music videos and fun clips on the iPad as the last line of defense. He even has his own headphones.

You’re thinking, “Kristen, you said it took you so long to pack. What do you have to bring?” The answer is quite simple: everything. Our entire condo, plus the carseat from the car. The thought of forgetting something is so unspeakably horrifying that I have no other choice. This has made my list quite long as you can imagine. Or short, depending on how you look at it.

So our taxi picks us up at 4 AM and we will have with us two adults, one toddler, and an entire condo. We are leaving the walls and the floor because our realtor scheduled two showings this weekend and we have to have something to sell.

I did say 4 AM, as in 6.5 hours from now. Better finish packing!

15 months and all sorts of things going on! Good thing Ashton is not a girl from Latin America. I would have wanted to throw some kind of Quinceañera and after his first birthday a few months ago, I’ve got no shake left in my maracas when it comes to parties like that. If you know what I mean.  Anyhoo, can’t remember if I updated you on this, but the offer on our condo fell through because of issues that came up in the home inspection. So there’s no new news on that front: we still live here. Ashton doesn’t seem affected by this at all and he’s been keeping his 15 month self pretty damn busy. Here are the latest stats:

Weight: 26.44 pounds (91st percentile)
Height: 33.25 inches (98th percentile- I’m not sure I buy this. 33.25 inches would mean he grew almost 3 inches in two months. Their “measuring system” consists of laying a thrashing toddler down on a bed with crinkle paper and marking above his head and below his foot and counting the inches in between. Scientific? Your call.)

Head circumference: 18.75 inches (73rd percentile and somewhat of a relief – he’s been hanging out in the 30th for his whole life. This figure suggests he is now better proportioned considering the monster numbers he’s putting up in other categories.)

Diapers: Size 5 daytimes, size 6 overnights

Clothes: 18-24 months, some 2T

Shoes: 5.5W

Teeth: 4 on the top, 2 on the bottom, and lots more on the way

Occupation: Sorter. If our house was a Sorting Factory, Ashton would be “Top Sorter”. He loves to group things, stack things, put things in cups and then pull them out and then put them back in again.

Vocabulary: He has moved away from syllables that just start with the letter D and now has B’s and a host of other sounds noises. As Jason has recently discovered, Ashton’s favorite word seems to be “doctor”. Whatever he is doing, if you say it, he takes time out of his busy Sorting Schedule and tries to repeat the sounds. You could say “banana”, “mediterranean”, “Yahtzee” or any other fun word but the minute you say “doctor”, I swear he lights up, starts babbling, and looks around for a stethoscope.

Alarming new trend: Peeing in the bathtub. Luckily, this trend is so consistent that I learned about it quickly and within seconds of dropping him in, I have my plastic cup ready to catch it. If you have just filled up a whole bathtub, intending to pour the water over your child’s head to wash his hair, you know it’s a virtual certainty that the pee-water will get in his eyes and mouth. Ask yourself: how do you carry on with a tubby after you know he’s relieved himself in it? Like, a LOT? (Rhetorical question.)

Favorite Food: Ketchup. And in this house, it might as well be oxygen because there’s no survival without it. I’d like to say it’s used sparingly but sometimes, Heinz’s High Fructose Corn Syrup mixed with Red #5 and Natural Tomato Flavors is the only thing you can possibly put on peas to make them more attractive. Sue me.

Favorite Stories: Right now he’s into a little series on Pooh and the four seasons. Stand by for a book review.

Biggest Hardship: the baby gate that blocks off the living room and dining room. These rooms are for adults: sharp edges, lots of plants. But if that gate is inadvertently left open, Ashton rushes forth so fast you’d think he’d just been granted access to the promised land. The gate is clear plastic and he has spent so much time with his nose pressed against it, gazing into the forbidden territory and pondering its certain treasures. I think when he is finally old enough, I am going to dissemble the gate and give him a commemorative piece like it was his very own Berlin Wall.

Hobbies: dancing. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say “knee bends with a touch of head bobbing”. This often occurs whether or not there is music.

Other numbers: 20 (ounces of milk per day), 2 (naps), 43 (times we’ve read Each Peach Pear Plum), 3 (pacifiers lost) and countless pictures, here about .001% of them. Happy 15 months!

Happy Halloween! This blog has documented so many firsts and yet…yesterday was not one of them. We are on to seconds! Ashton’s second Halloween and we had so much fun. I finished work a little early so we could head up to Cushing Square to hit all the local businesses that have candy out for the kiddies.

We got up there and it was touch and go for the first few minutes. Ashton was a little grumpy about being in a costume.

We met up with Chera and Owen, who was a contractor 🙂

After Cushing Square, we came back home quickly to put the finishing touches on our pumpkins and light em up.

By the end of the night, the boys were picking pieces of candy out of the baskets, putting them in their pumpkins, and saying Bye bye to the neighbors. They got an “A” in trick or treating! Too bad Ashton can’t have any of the candy because of his egg and nut allergies. Luckily, Jason is around to make sure none of it goes to waste.

I wish I could take credit for this. It’s a new parent test originally published here and recommends that you follow and pass 14 tests before having children, or considering having them.

Test 1: Preparation

Women: To prepare for pregnancy

1. Put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front.

2. Leave it there.

3. After 9 months remove 5% of the beans

.

Men: To prepare for children

1. Go to a local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself

2. Go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.

3. Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.

Test 2: Knowledge

Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild. 

Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour.

Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Test 3: Nights

To discover how the nights will feel:

You can kiss goodbye to precious beauty sleep as soon as you have a child

1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4 – 6kg, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.

2.  At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.

3. Get up at 11pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am.

4. Set the alarm for 3am.

5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.

6. Go to bed at 2.45am.

7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off.

8. Sing songs in the dark until 4am.

9. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off.

10. Make breakfast.

Keep this up for 5 years. LOOK CHEERFUL.

Test 4: Dressing Small Children

1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.

2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that no arms hangout.

Time Allowed: 5 minutes.

Test 5: Cars

1. Forget the BMW. Buy a practical 5-door wagon.

2. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.

3. Get a coin. Insert it into the CD player.

4. Take a box of chocolate biscuits; mash them into the back seat.

5. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Test 6: Going for a walk

The hilarious blog post details a new parent test for broody mothers

a. Wait.

b. Go out the front door.

c. Come back in again.

d. Go out.

e. Come back in again.

f. Go out again.

g. Walk down the front path.

h. Walk back up it.

i. Walk down it again.

j. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.

k. Stop, inspect minutely and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way.

l. Retrace your steps.

m. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.

n. Give up and go back into the house.

You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Test 7: Conversations with children

Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.

Test 8: Grocery Shopping

1. Go to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child – a fully grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.

2. Buy your weekly groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight.

3. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.

Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Test 9: Feeding a 1 year-old

1. Hollow out a melon

2. Make a small hole in the side

3. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it side to side

4. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon while pretending to be an aeroplane.

5. Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.

6. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.

Test 10:TV

1. Learn the names of every character from the Wiggles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney.

2. Watch nothing else on television for at least 5 years.

Test 11:  Mess

Can you stand the mess children make? To find out:

Are you up to the challenge of parenthood asks this hilarious blog post

1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains

2. Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.

3. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds and then rub them on clean walls. Cover the stains with crayon. How does that look?

4. Empty every drawer/cupboard/storage box in your house onto the floor and proceed with step 5.

5. Drag randomly items from one room to another room and leave them there.

Test 12: Long Trips with Toddlers

1. Make a recording of someone shouting ‘Mummy’ repeatedly. Important Notes: No more than a 4 second delay between each Mummy. Include occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet.

2. Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next 4 years.

You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Test 13:Conversations

1. Start talking to an adult of your choice.

2. Have someone else continually tug on your shirt hem or shirt sleeve while playing the Mummy tape listed above.

You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Test 14: Getting ready for work

1. Pick a day on which you have an important meeting.

2. Put on your finest work attire.

3. Take a cup of cream and put 1 cup of lemon juice in it

4. Stir

5. Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt

6. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture

7. Attempt to clean your shirt with the same saturated towel

8. Do not change (you have no time).

9. Go directly to work

You are now ready to have children. ENJOY!!

Me again. I suspect this is only funny to new parents but still. 

Ashton Nill, 14 months, 80’s rocker.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone