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October 31, 2010

Halloween 2010

What a great Halloween!

Posted by atshuldiner at 8:39 PM | Comments (3)

October 29, 2010

Movie: Where's the baby?

Clever baby! Like most babies, he really doesn't like having his face covered (unless he's trying to go to sleep) and will remove such immediately...unless we're playing "Where's the baby?" Once he realizes that it's a game he sits and waits for the denouement. Clever clever!

Bonus: He's now ticklish! At first he wasn't at all, then he started reacting to being poked in the ribs, and now the tickle = laugh circuit is fully functional. That's brain development I suppose.

Posted by atshuldiner at 12:55 AM

October 23, 2010

Movie: Gideon deflates

Another in what will no doubt be a long series of movies of Gideon falling asleep. This one, though, is particularly cute.

Posted by atshuldiner at 6:52 PM

October 22, 2010

Movie: Gideon laughs!

Previous to this we haven't been able to get much more from Gideon than a sort of dry chuckle. Today, however, he really started to get it, and nothing tickles him so much as Felix acting funny. (Interestingly, he will laugh at other kids trying to startle him, but will not laugh (nor be much startled) when adults try it.)

Sense of humor is genetic, I'm convinced. Specifically, I believe an appreciation of slapstick is fully determined by chromosomal inheritance. Felix has clearly inherited this and now, it seems, Gideon has, too. They both get it from their father.

Posted by atshuldiner at 6:47 PM

October 19, 2010

Movie: Time to lower the crib

Gideon is showing signs of planning an escape, so we've beefed up security.

Posted by atshuldiner at 10:15 PM

October 13, 2010

Movie: Who's that in the mirror?

Gideon is almost as pleased to see himself as we are!

Posted by atshuldiner at 12:06 AM

October 12, 2010

Movie: Feeding Gideon

We both want the same thing, Gideon! Maybe we want it too much.

Posted by atshuldiner at 12:07 AM

October 11, 2010

Happy 5 month birthday Gideon

you continue to be the happiest baby on the block, I didn't need to read a book or watch a video to make you that way. Thanks for being you, most naturally.

Love, Mama

Posted by talia at 7:06 PM

October 10, 2010

Movie: The monster at the end of the book

Too cute for words. I remember this book from my own childhood, I remember it well. Was I, could I ever have been, this cute?!?

Posted by atshuldiner at 11:45 PM

October 7, 2010

Movie: Felix feeds Gideon

Wonderful. Felix doing the feeding is even better than Gideon learning to hold his own bottle (which he has done!). But most remarkable of all is that Gideon is really eating the stuff, remarkable, that is, in comparison with Felix himself, who cheerfully endured our early feeding attempts at six months (Gideon is not yet five) but probably didn't swallow a thing for several weeks after we first introduced solids. Go Gid!

Posted by atshuldiner at 8:57 PM

October 6, 2010

Movie: First food for Gideon

A NATURAL.

(Of course what goes in--concord grapes--did come out undigested, as his mother predicted. Still, we had a great time!)

Posted by atshuldiner at 8:56 PM

October 5, 2010

Movie: Digeon

Will he won't he will he won't he will he eat the sand?

Posted by atshuldiner at 8:51 PM

October 4, 2010

Movie: Wagons

Wagons are the way to go, whether it's mama pulling...

Or Felix!

Posted by atshuldiner at 8:13 PM

Movie: Felix fears

Felix is not, by any means, a fearful child, but there's something out there for us all, something scary. By way of run up to the movie, below, let me mention that Felix had asked to go see the big blue puppet, that I had walked over to the puppet with him, that he had expressed nothing but frank curiosity while we did so, and that he totally freaked out and ran away screaming after I surreptitiously reached around behind the puppet and made its arm move, seemingly on its own. Charmingly, as he ran, he screamed for me to get away from the suddenly dangerous puppet, too. This displayed presence of mind and love in equal measures. As the movie shows, he was still pretty leery of the puppet even some time later. Gideon, of course, remained stolid throughout, as is his wont.

I love how Felix handles what few fears he has. First comes the realization that he is afraid--that the puppet is unexpectedly alive, that the big boulder in his Thomas episode has a spooky hidden face--then comes the story telling, sometimes lasting for days, wherein he relates how scared he was by the experience. This is followed, or has been in past episodes, by a request to be exposed again to the terror, preferably while holding a parental hand. With familiarity the fear ebbs, until he is able to enjoy the experience, and with it a certain pride at having outgrown his childish fright. Then comes more story telling, sometimes lasting for weeks and weeks and weeks.

In this video I attempt to accelerate the process by detoxifying the puppet:

Not sure how successful it was: on the one hand, he still refused to come near it, but on the other he seems pretty amused by it all some days later. The real test is to return to the scene of the scare and see how he handles that.

Posted by atshuldiner at 7:45 PM