Orin's Spatula

In a previous post, I mentioned that Orin's favorite 

toy was his yellow spatula.

The spatula meets all of the usual criteria for a favorite toy,

 namely:

1. It is not, in fact, a toy

2. It would serve some useful purpose had it not been 

seized by the baby 

3. It is not something that adults would think would be 

of any interest to a baby. 

That being said, I will let Orin tell you about his spatula.

It is a great spatula.

It can be balanced on one's head.

It can be chewed. 

Both ends, in fact.

It can be used for conducting,

reenacting the end of one of the Shakespeare plays,

steadying oneself,

and demanding attention.

What more could a baby want?

A Birthday, A President

Yesterday we celebrated Orin's 8 month birthday.

This month, for his birthday, Orin got

a new president. 

We all have high hopes that the next four years will be filled 

with carefully thought out foreign policy,

coherent sentences,

and any type of effort to dig our country out of the hole

(or shall I say "crater")

left behind in the wake of the Bush administration.

The future is looking good.

A New Bear

Today, despite the blistering cold,

we decided to go to the Oregon Zoo.

Even though Orin is a little young to have a deep appreciation for

the wildlife of the world, he does enjoy wheelies,

which he got to do quite a lot of with Casey in control of the stroller.

Besides the usual lions and tigers...

and bears...

oh my!

Orin got his first look at elephants 

(notice the now ever-present tongue),

bald eagles, anacondas, otters,

sea lions, naked mole rats, and polar bears.

Watching the polar bears was definitely 

the highlight of the trip for me.

They are absolutely massive, but still so graceful in the water.

The polar bears struck a cord with Orin as well. 

To ward off the cold this morning 

we dressed Ori in his snow bear suit.

At the zoo he was almost indistinguishable 

when he was next to the other bears.

What do you think?

We have decided that we will have to come back in the summer

when Orin is a little older and it is a lot warmer.

After all, we didn't even get to see the hippopotami. 

I will leave you with a completely non-zoo themed picture

which will serve as the baby picture of the day.

Here, Orin is demonstrating that no matter how many brightly colored,

multi textured, singing, dancing, vibrating, neon-flashing 

baby toys you offer a child, 

they always has more fun with something else,

something really boring... like baby powder (in this picture)

or Orin's all-time favorite toy, his yellow spatula (picture to come)

A Backwards Tooth Fairy

Casey and I are obsessed with the board game Settlers of Catan.

(If you haven't heard of this game, buy it... I am not kidding,

or, if you can, come over... we will be sure to show you the ropes)

The only problem with the game is that it requires 

more than 2 people.

So whenever anyone visits, we inevitably try to convince them to play.

The other day, we were successful.

Uncle Tony and Aunt Katie were naturals... 

Katie almost won the game, which either says a lot 

for her natural ability to play Settlers, 

or Casey and my natural ability to lose.

Orin enjoys board game night as well 

because it means he gets passed around the table

and bathed in attention.

Sometimes, the added attention is enough to keep him occupied,

but occasionally he decides that he would rather 

get involved in the game,

an idea that normally leads him to 

snatch the dice and cram them in his mouth

or clear off a section of the board with a quick arm thrust.

When this happens, we are forced to put him in his own seat to 

chew on the telephone and unwind.

And yes, I said "chew" not "gum."

You guessed it: Orin's first tooth poked through two days ago!

After nearly a month of drooling and crying, I was glad to finally

know we were making progress.

And now that there is a tooth in his mouth,

it seems he has run out of room for his tongue.

Which is fine with me, because it is pretty funny to photograph.

Up

Over the last couple of weeks, I have witnessed a big change in Orin.

Before Christmas, even though he was already capable of crawling,

he mainly stayed in one place.

It was only when he was highly motivated,

like when there was a cell phone or a kitty in sight,

that he would snap into action.

All that has changed now.

Orin is always on the move.

Even when he is supposed to be napping.

This, as you might have guessed, 

has caused some problems.

We have always had the same nap-time routine:

Orin starts rubbing his eyes, I bring him into the bedroom,

snuggle him up in blankets, give him his pacifier, and he falls asleep.

Now, there is an additional step

that comes after the receiving of the pacifier and before

the part where he falls asleep.

It starts like this.

Then this.

And finally, this.

The only problem is, that the smile doesn't last long.

He is still tired, of course,

and pretty soon he is back to rubbing his eyes and crying.

It is a vicious cycle.

The only remedy that I have found is sitting next to him 

while he falls asleep and holding his hip in place so he can't roll over.

It is boring and time-consuming,

but better than having an over-tired baby.

Ah, the many joys of parenting.

A New Space

Yesterday as I begrudgingly mopped up the contents of the 

dog water dish for the second day in a row

(Orin has started to make it a habit to dump it

all over the floor (and himself) every time I turn around)

I decided that something needed to change.

Orin is becoming increasingly more mobile

and as I looked around our room I saw numerous future messes,

like the cat litter box, which I heard actually has a sign on it 

that only babies can read that says

 "dump me all over the floor and then eat my contents"

 Orin was going to need his own space.

After dragging a couple of large pieces of furniture around

to section off part of the room,

I cleared every imaginable baby hazard out of the area,

(I am sure I missed a few, but Orin will be quick to show me

my mistakes in the morning)

and gathered up all of Orin's things 

and arranged them in his new "room."

Now that Orin will have a separate place to play

not only do I not have to clean up a half gallon of water again,

but I also won't have to trip over his various

trucks, books, balls, and stuffed animals.

It was a good day.

In other updates:

Orin has learned how to take steps forward when you hold his hands,

he can also pull himself up to a standing position,

but he only does that in my lap.

He also has developed a love for art,

here he is at the Portland Art Museum

getting ready to (very enthusiastically) eat his ticket.

Well, I think that is all for today.

I leave you with this random picture which I love but have never

managed to work into a blog post.

Goodnight.

Orin and his Puppies

Orin has three puppies.

He loves them.

To show his affection he feeds them.

For this, they love him too.

The fact that Orin feeds the dogs at the table

drives me nuts, but he really seems to enjoy it,

so today, instead of trying to thwart him,

I decided to photograph the ritual.

First, he lures one in by calling ba-ba-baaaa

(the full extent of his vocabulary)

Then he gives them, in this case Purple,

a glance at the goods.

He then, very gently, leans over and offers her

the over-priced organic teething biscuit.

She considers the offer,

and accepts.

Orin is happy.

Purple is happy.

I am not happy.

Especially because he gave Purple a treat...

Purple, the worst behaved of the three terrible dogs.

Purple, the one who just last April

while I was deep in my third trimester and nothing fit me,

decided to destroy my most comfortable pair of pants.

But there is nothing I can do,

Orin loves his puppies.

Gingersnap Cookies

The last few days of our trip Orin and I hung out with 

Grandma Elisabeth and Grandpa Dean.

It was while we were staying with them that Orin

had an eating breakthrough.

When I used to feed Orin I would give him control of the spoon.

(I saw his eating as a game more than an attempt 

at productive calorie intake).

With Orin at the wheel, food would occasionally end up in his mouth,

but more often than not, it didn't.

After watching Matthew and Robbi feed Alden,

I decided I would take control of the spoon for a while.

The result: Several empty jars of baby food,

Orin's first solid poop,

and an open door to new culinary experiences.

All of a sudden, Orin was eating everything:

bagels, cheerios, gingersnap cookies...

The solid foods had more to do with the fact that we were 

staying with my mother 

(motto: gingersnap cookies... why not?)

rather than having any relation to the change of spoon control,

but either way, Orin is now an official eating machine.

The last day of our trip we went to the Cape to follow up on a rumor

that Rowan has started to walk and also occasionally

"dances around shaking his bottom and snapping his fingers"

Here are his parents trying to get him to show off his snapping ability:

Turns out, he was a little shy of snapping infront of new people,

but Orin and I did get to watch him walk all over the house,

a professional at 11 months!

The boys had a nice time together.

Rowan was a very gracious host and showed Orin all of his new toys.

He also demonstrated how both the top and the middle of

the Excersaucer could be used for entertainment purposes.

Orin's favorite part of the visit was definitely his discovery of this toy:

a large mirror with flashing lights, various music beats,

and dancing characters.

I have seen a toy like this before in my worst nightmares,

but for Orin it was a dream come true.

After saying goodbye to Colleen, Cody, and Rowan

Orin and I drove back up north to my mother's house,

packed up the last of our suitcases,

and got a couple hours of sleep before catching our early morning

flight back to Portland.

I think that even though we had a great time visiting everyone

we were both glad when we finally got home

and were reunited with Casey.

Hope you are all well.