The New Dad Blog

The Car Wash and the Superbowl Party

Every year we host a Superbowl party at our house. The challenge for Jude this year was that we would have to dismantle his "car wash" that has been sitting in our TV room for the last month or two. As you can see here the car wash is made of cushions from the couch and removing it proved to be a problem. To say Jude loves his car wash would be like saying Michelangelo liked to paint. Jude loves his car wash. He plays with it every day, often playing contentedly by himself for half an hour or more. When he is not playing with it he often talks about how he is going to use it to clean his cars because "they are very dirty." The photo above was taken tonight just after we had put the car wash back together.

Marcy had been telling Jude all week that we were having a party and that we would have to put his car wash away temporarily. He seemed ok with it until just before the party started today. We started to put the car wash away....then....meltdown. Jude was completely distraught that his car wash was being dismantled. It wasn't until people started arriving (and a neighbor brought a lollipop to share) that Jude calmed down.

Jude does not seem to be a big fan of parties. He seems to enjoy the company for a little while and then he likes to go off by himself. Tonight, he stayed and played with the other kids for most of the first half of the game. He was even sharing his toys with some of the other kids, something that is hard for any three year old.

One thing I don't think that we have mentioned on the blog is Jude's cute little saying he says whenever Marcy or I are leaving. We will be putting our shoes on and getting ready to go when Jude comes running up and says, "How could you forget a hug and a kiss?" It is adorable, and he will say it even if we just gave him a hug and a kiss 30 seconds ago.

Jude was hanging out on our back deck this week when Marcy snapped this cute photo below.

Jude and the "Big Pig"

We have been going to the Museum of Nature and Science on average about once a week since we moved to Park Hill almost a year ago. It is less than a mile away and it is always a big hit with Jude. About a year ago we went to the museum and stumbled across the "big pig". It is a prehistoric animal (pictured above) that roamed the Nebraska plains millions of years ago and it is an ancient ancestor of the pig. This "big pig" (this is what they actually call it) freaked Jude out. He has not been able to go into the dinosaur section of the museum since then. Until yesterday.

Jude has talked about seeing the big pig again many times since that visit but he has always backed out when I ask him if he wants to go there. Yesterday, he tentatively said it again, and with Anna in tow all three of us made our way to the dinosaur section. We went straight to the see the big pig and while Jude was very scared he didn't back down. Eventually he became quite comfortable and he was really excited getting over his big pig phobia. He couldn't stop talking about it after we got home and this morning we were going to go to the car wash, but Jude wanted to go back to the museum to see the big pig again. So for the second time in 24 hours off we went.

Jude had a bit of a cold this week. He stayed home from school on Thursday morning but by Friday he was feeling better so it was back off to school again. Speaking of school, we are undecided whether to keep Jude at his current preschool or move him to a Montessori or Waldorf school. The great thing about his current school is that it is two blocks away and we can walk there each day, but we think he would benefit more from a different program. We will be exploring this more over coming months.

Unlike the rest of the country we have had a very mild January with hardly any snow and so Jude and Anna have been able to spend some time outside. Here they are in front of our house this week.

"Hey, I Like it When You Come to Visit My House"

Jude was a happy camper this weekend because Baba came to visit from Des Moines. After dinner tonight Jude made his feelings known when he told Baba, "Hey, I like it when you come to visit my house." Baba has spent a lot of time with Jude and Anna this weekend playing games and just hanging out. And Baba also showed Jude how to take his shoes off, this is what she is doing in the above photo.

Jude is getting closer to dropping his afternoon nap. It seems that about half the time he just plays in his bedroom for an hour or so and doesn't actually sleep. We can hear him on the monitor banging around up in his room. But there are still days when he falls asleep and we have to wake him up at 3:30pm (like today). We don't let him sleep any later, this way he will be in bed before 8pm.

We have a new bath time routine these days. Most nights I give Jude and Anna a bath together and then Jude gets to run naked for about 10 minutes. He loves this time. He will run up and down the hall probably 50 times until he is out of breath. Anna gets a hoot out of it as well, spending the time trying to chase him.

Yesterday Jude and I were out in the front yard playing catch when Jude decided he wanted to climb a tree. I gave him a boost up and he played up in the tree for ages. He enjoyed being "up so high."

Jude Has His First Pony Ride

 

The highlight of this past week for Jude was definitely our now annual visit to the National Western Stock Show. Jude loved seeing all the animals and he even mustered up the courage to go on his first ever pony ride. You can check out the video here. He was quite sad when it was over, he really enjoyed it. The cows were also a big hit, he even saw one of them take a pee which surprised him. He spends so much time playing with his plastic animals it is good for him to get out and see the real thing.

Most mornings these days Marcy or I go to the gym. We usually leave before Jude is up so he is always very excited to see us when we get home. We tell him we go to the gym for a workout and when he sees us he always asks, "How was your checkout?" We think it is funny.

We are working on sharing these days. There are only certain things that he likes to share with Anna, most of his toys are off limits to her. This can cause no end of trouble, because Anna has no clue what she isn't allowed to touch. So, we are trying to encourage him to share by giving him a sticker every time he shares one of his toys with Anna. When he gets five stickers he gets a prize. When he is mean to Anna he gets one of his toys taken away. He is really sweet with her sometimes, but when it comes to his animals, his cars, or his car wash these are off limits to Anna.

Marcy made brownies this morning for a visit to our friends Chris & Rachel for dinner. Jude loves helping out Marcy and the kitchen and he particularly liked helping with the brownies. He gets to lick the spatula when Marcy is finished and as you can see below his whole face enjoys it.

Jude and His Animals

It probably comes as no news to anyone that Jude loves animals. Now, he is gathering quite a collection after a Christmas gift from down under added to his already large collection. This weekend he got out most of his animals and organized them on his table into what he called his zoo.

This week was "back to school" week for Jude after a two week Christmas-New Year break. On Monday morning he didn't want to go, he kept on saying "school is closed," something we had been saying for some time. But once Marcy convinced him to get moving he enjoyed it just like usual. He went every morning this week with no complaints after Monday.

Jude was eating some pretzels earlier this week when Anna woke up from her nap. He likes to open Anna's door and go see her before we go in. This is what he said to Marcy, "I need to go see mine Anna. You can't touch my pretzels." He can be very funny sometimes.

I looked after Jude and Anna all weekend because Marcy had Ridhwan classes. This is always challenging, mainly because I am not used to looking after two kids by myself. I like to take them on two outings each day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Jude tends to get bored sometimes at home and he can take it out on Anna, but when they are out he is engaged with what he is doing. This morning we tried a new playground in the Stapleton neighborhood and they had these funny purple mounds that Jude liked climbing up.

Jude is a Jazz Guy

For the last two years or so when we have been driving in the car with Jude we listen to "Hello Music" - these are the music class CD's from Music Together that Jude loves. Well recently we have started a new rule. Jude can listen to his music on the way to where ever we are going, but we get to listen to our music on the way home. This plan has worked well for the last week or two. The interesting twist is that if we have some jazz on in the car Jude doesn't even demand to listen to his music, he is quite content to just listen. Anything else, though, we get the Hello Music demand from the back seat.

Jude is getting close to giving up his afternoon nap. He has missed it a couple of times in the last week and been no worse off for it, other than wanting to go to bed early. He is starting back at preschool tomorrow after a two week break, so he will probably be tired for the next few days. But once he gets back in that mode we are thinking of skipping it some time soon.

We went to the playground downtown today and Jude had a great time climbing and playing. We were surprised at how high up he climbed, he went quite a bit higher even than the photo below.

Home for Christmas

We were home in Denver for Christmas this year which was quiet but relaxing. We didn't make a big deal out of Santa Claus but we did talk about it with Jude and he left out some cookies for Santa before going to bed on Christmas Eve. Jude tends to get a bit overwhelmed with lots of presents, so when he woke up on Christmas Day he wasn't all that interested in new presents. We had opened up the presents from my family in Australia on Christmas Eve, and he just wanted to continue playing with those gifts. Above is Jude at 7am on Christmas morning playing with his new animals from his family down under.

We opened up presents throughout Christmas Day and one of his new favorites was Buttermilk, the rocking horse from Baba and Grandpa. Here is a long video of Jude and Anna both enjoying their new horses.

This week we have tried introducing some positive reinforcement for Jude, mainly around his treatment of Anna. Every time we catch him being nice to Anna he gets a sticker, and when he gets five stickers he gets a surprise toy. This seems to have helped, he has been making more efforts to be nice as you can see here with this photo above taken on Christmas morning.

We had a white Christmas in Denver this year. We had a snowstorm a couple of days before Christmas and it dropped 8-10 inches of snow. Jude likes to come out and play in the snow while I shovel the sidewalk.

Jude's Getting Ready for Christmas

Marcy made this gingerbread train with Jude this week. He enjoyed the whole process (he particularly liked the green frosting), and was quite impressed with the finished product.

On Tuesday this week it was Marcy's birthday. So we all went out for afternoon tea at Marcy's favorite tea house. Jude ordered a hot chocolate and we were all surprised to see what an elaborate creation it was. Jude loves getting sprinkles on his ice cream and here they came with his hot chocolate and whipped cream. It took him a while to get through it but he did manage to finish his big drink.

Jude got a special personalized video email from Santa this week (thanks Baba) and he was completely mesmerized by this video. He must have played it literally 30 times this weekend. You can see how captivated he is by it.

The other big news of the week for Jude is that this past week Jude went to school every morning. We gave him the option one day to go to school or play with Summer, our babysitter, and he chose school. He loves it. On Saturday morning when he woke up he wanted to start getting ready for school. When we told him he couldn't go he started crying. He said, "I still want to go to school Daddy." The bummer here is that school is now off for two weeks for the Christmas break. It will be interesting to see if his enthusiasm is still there come January.

We finally bought our Christmas tree yesterday. We held off doing it until now because we weren't sure whether or not we would go to the mountains for Christmas. We decided to stay home and Jude helped Marcy decorate the tree after we got it home.

Jude Goes Sledding in Keystone

Jude tried sledding for the first time today.We have spent the weekend in Keystone with our old neighbors, James, Amy and Max. We took Jude and Max (who is 4) sledding today. Max is an old hand at this, but it was Jude's first outing. He loved it. He laughed and giggled the whole time and was very disappointed when it came time to go. One day this season I am hoping to get Jude on skis, but we will stick with sledding for now.

Jude has never been much of a TV watcher, but James and Amy had a Little Einstein video that captivated Jude for a while. Interesting the chairs both boys chose to watch the TV.

Jude has been enjoying school so much that we have decided to up his days to four days a week starting this week. We may even do five days some weeks. He gets bored at home after a while, and he is home nearly every afternoon with Marcy. He really enjoys being around the other kids, and he talks about his friends at school now all the time.

We have been mentioning potty training to Jude now for months. He still shows no interest every time we mention it, but we will keep plugging away at him. We have even bribed him with M&M's and gum if he does it. One day soon we hope to report the breakthrough.

We have been waking Jude up from naps by 3:30pm so we can put him to bed earlier. His bed time has been 8:30pm, but that left no time for Marcy and I to spend together before we go to bed. So now we put him down between 7:30 and 8pm every night. Here is a photo I took of Jude before I woke him up today - what an angel.

Silly Daddy Got It Wrong

"Silly Daddy Got it Wrong" is one of Jude's new favorite expressions. Sometimes, of course, I am wrong and he is probably justified in saying it and other times he just thinks he's right, so he says it anyway. Like most 3 year olds he is quite certain of his positions.

We have mentioned here before Jude's love of car washes. This week we made a "pillow car wash" in the basement. He brought all his cars, trucks and buses from his playroom and put them through this new car wash. He has probably spent three or four hours this week playing with his new car wash.

In the basement we also have an old phone that Jude and Anna like to play with. Marcy got a bit of a shock yesterday afternoon when a policeman showed up at our front door saying there was a 911 call from our place. Jude had unknowingly dialed 911 and because the operator heard kids in the background they sent the police to investigate. Oops. We will have to keep a closer eye on Jude around the phone in future.

Sometimes Jude and Anna play very well together. Tonight they were playing with Jude's dump truck. And while Jude didn't like it if Anna took over the drill, he would happily let her sit next to him to play.