18 months

John turned 18 months yesterday and is climbing *everywhere*. If I leave the living room for a minute with the curtains raised, he climbs on top of the arm of the sofa so he can have a better view of the back yard. He can climb out of the bathtub and also into the the driver's seat of the car directly from the ground. Our entryway contains a full flight of stairs and I usually let him climb up it while following behind. John would rather not have me follow, it appears, so he sort of runs in place at the bottom of the stairs until I go upstairs, after which he quickly climbs up the stairs. (I'm not so sure I'll be letting him do that again for a bit...) He looks really cute at the bottom of the stairs, though, sort of like Road Runner spinning his feet before racing after Wiley Cyote (if I am remembering my childhood cartoons correctly). He's happiest on days he runs around a lot and gets clingy on days we stay inside.

He loves to be read to and we often read 10+ books a day, a couple of times each. He'll sit through Dr. Seuss's ABCs (the unabridged version) once or twice a day. I think it is a good ABC book because the letters are used in a variety of ways (for example, "Camel on the ceiling"). I also like that uses of "x" are listed instead of the word "x-ray". "X is very useful if your name is Nixie Knox. It also comes in handy spelling ax and extra fox." (My MIL is a reading teacher and has given me criteria for evaluating ABC books!) John also likes looking through a Proverbs for Boys book which has oil paintings on each spread depicting a boy, his dog, and his frog doing a wise or gracious thing. Last night, the two of us looked through the book for twenty-five minutes. John doesn't appreciate the rhymes yet, but points out the dog, frog, and maybe a ball, apple or pumpkin on each page. I name the objects for him and then he turns to the next page. When we get to the end, he starts all over again.

Taking after his father, my uncles, my cousin, and other male relatives, John hasn't started talking yet. I would have been rather surprised if he had, and given the family history, the pediatrician thought waiting until John's second birthday before taking any other steps was reasonable. He also noted that while everyone nowadays is worried about autism, John was way too clingy and involved with other people for that to be a concern right now. (Dan's first word, sometime after the age of two, was "Awesome." He said it in response to some skateboarding kids nearby. He didn't even bother with "mama" or "dada" first! My father's cousin didn't talk til after three, at which point he said his first words to his mother, "Stupid ---, you shouldn't have done that" in response to his mother breaking something or stubbing her toe.)

As we expected, the pediatrician was concerned about John's lack of weight gain. He's now 90% in height and 10% in weight, so he gave some suggestions of how to increase John's food intake. I'll be ordering some Ellyn Satter books online after our trip (I think I'd like to own the resource - I just got it through interlibrary loan before). The two things I'm implementing now are an extra snack during the day (John naps so much that while I want to do two snacks a day, he usually only gets one - Ellyn suggests two) as well as taking a short break (~5 minutes) between when he rejects food at a meal and offering it again. The doctor suggested that John may not be full but may just need time off. Also, I'll be making our hot breakfast cereal with whole milk instead of water!

While driving yesterday, I heard two men on the radio who were angry about the rise of "fundamentalism" in the USA. They were on the radio for 10-15 minutes. In those 10-15 minutes, they used three colloquialisms that could only be understood within a culture that has a Christian background. I wonder if they'll blush when they listen to a tape of the show.

Argh.

My back seems to be 95% better - Praise the Lord! I remember my back injury from basketball taking a lot longer to heal. We still need to get our train passes, but all passports have arrived safely.

Back, part II

I had a PT appointment today, but was feeling much better before I went.

On Monday, the PT had made a number of comments about how the question was "When" I would get a back injury, not "If", because I was so weak. Weak??? I carry a 25-pound toddler everywhere! (Well, not quite - but few people spend more than 30 min/day weight lifting, so I thought I was better off than most American couch potatoes.) According to the PT, child-carrying increases strength in a few muscles (biceps, quads) but doesn't strengthen the trunk. Also, most child-carrying is done by shifting your frame instead of by using muscles, so it doesn't count towards exercise.

Anyways, my strong quads appear to be trying to compensate for my weak trunk and that was likely the cause of the injury. Today, I found it nearly impossible to do the exercises without tightening my quads (though tightening my quads decreased my range of motion and increased my pain) so that is what I'll be working on over the next couple of weeks. The exercises should be easy to do at home since only a few required special equipment.

The gas station up the street has a banner advertising AC tune-ups:

"Sometimes 'You look hot' isn't a complement."

Wow, it is hot here. Today's high is over 100 with humidity above 70 and no letup in the forecast for the next few days. I'm camping out in the living room with the AC on.

Unfortunately, I've also got a hot pad on. I did something to my back on Sunday (actually, I didn't do anything unusual, just walk down the stairs from church while carrying John) and now everything hurts. Thankfully, our health plan includes on-campus PT for no extra charge, so I'll be going twice this week. I need to heal quickly - our 3-week European tour starts in two weeks. GAH! Not only that, but John and I will be joining Dan there a few days in, meaning I have a three-leg flight with John and no Dan. BAH!

To add to that, Dan has been having pain while typing - early CT. He's seen a doctor and gotten "Workplace Health" to do a workstation evaluation. He picked up a new keyboard today, he'll be getting a new chair soon, and has been doing stretches and exercises to help. I've told him I'll type for him if he needs it for some of his write-ups; so far, though, it has been somewhat of a blessing because he's breaking up his work-day more.