The Western Front

Tobernovella #2… after a record break, the blog is back! We were swept up in the rush of me finishing my dissertation and all of us moving and settling into our new home. We did get a few brief breaks (most memorably, celebrating Chris and Ragan’s wedding). The good news is that I finished data collection in mid-May and defended successfully just over a month later. I wrote most of this catch-up post during the road trip to Oregon (which was epic, deserves an entire blog of its own, and left us even more eternally indebted to Grandpa Fred and MommaSue than we were before.)

I finished this update after a month of my new job. Now back to our regularly scheduled Toby news!

Shortly after the last blog post, spring arrived in Michigan. This brought a dramatic change to our daily lives; Toby now wants to be outside ALL THE TIME. There is a lot less reading and a lot more bruising going on.

The first magical day we were outside he ran up and down the driveway and climbed the neighbor’s playhouse to throw pine needles down the slide and drop maple seeds, watching them whirl their way to the ground. As spring advanced there have been more exciting discoveries – watching robins hop in the yard, chasing moths from tussock to tussock, following the journeys of ants, petting caterpillars, and eating wood sorrel (which leads to some exciting diapers). Rainy days are enchanting too, as he discovers the joys of puddle jumping and mud squelching. As I’ve become (too much of?) a grown-up, I’ve missed taking time to just sit and watch what’s going on outside… it is lovely to be able to rediscover it with Toby.

He approaches nearly everything with cautious curiosity, and amazes us with his memory and sustained interest. Along with sorrel and catnip, he can identify several species of grass now; in the animal world, he knows crows, turkey vultures, robins, butterflies, earwigs, spiders, daddy longlegs, and flies. I finally understand now why kids are so obsessed with insects – they move, but not too fast, and they’re easy to find. I’m sure Toby would bring the same passion he has for flies to mammals, but they don’t hang out on his swing set. Anyway, I’m sure investing in this kind of exploration will make me a better scientist, so I consider accompanying Tobes on these adventures professional development.

Although he loves the natural world, our tot still claims technology as a primary interest. It’s on a level with the obsessions many boys his age have with construction equipment and trains. Phones, keyboards, cameras, stereos, and the interiors of unfamiliar vehicles are all extremely exciting – although he’s banned from Daddy’s car after running the battery down with over-enthusiastic implementation of hazard lights. He hasn’t had much access to computers, but now that he’s two, we decided to follow the Royer-Miller model of allowing a few short videos on YouTube every day. His current favorites are 1) Good Night Moon (absolutely every day) and 2) “Let it Go” from the movie Frozen (nearly every day). Other than that, we watch whatever else he stumbles across or we suggest. Often this includes videos of cats (it is the internet), wombats (which feature prominently in a couple of his favorite books), and cheesy children’s songs. Now that I’m learning to write code at work, maybe we’ll get him into some toddler computer programming.

Since the last post, Toby has advanced from picking up innumerable new words to stringing them together in sentences. He’s also mastering definite and indefinite articles and plurals. Before this he was usually right at the milestones for language skills, but now he’s blowing by them with complex sentences of six or more words. The first one I heard that really impressed me was “I want a pot. A big a pot.” And soon after, “I go visit Daddy in the office.” Other common early ones were “I go Caca [Tresha - daycare]”, “Mama/Daddy too,” and discussions about me shaving my armpits: “I see hair there. Bye-bye, hair!” That was early May, and it’s snowballed since then. We are relishing the budding conversations that these new developments allow. Toby tells us what he does and doesn’t like, what he wants to do, and what he’s thinking about. This last point is especially interesting – with the characteristic toddler lack of filter, his language is stream-of-consciousness, moving seamlessly from telling a story about being cold in the pool to explaining that he wants a graham cracker and you’re “in the WAAAAAY!”  

Of course, there are challenges that come with 2-year-old feelings and limited language. But honestly, are there even words to properly express the 30-second switch from elation to despair to anger a toddler feels multiple times a day? And would any of us, in the throes of the same experience, be able to organize our thoughts to say anything? So far, we’re all weathering the requisite temper tantrums with style and enjoy the giddiness that is generously interspersed.

You know what causes giddiness? Trampolines! Our old Michigan neighbors, the Straubs, have a big one. The dangerous kind. Toby loved it. Once he discovered it, it took  precedence over dropping maple seeds and attempting to go up the slide. He used to call it “campine” and then advanced to “camp-o-ine,” and learned the names of all the neighbor girls (Marie, Heidi, Holly, and Baby to both twins) so that he could request each of their company while jumping. This had the side benefit of giving Toby the role of Prince in endless complicated fantasy games that involved fairies, fancy dresses, precious jewels, and magical rainbow powers. As long as jumping was also part of the game, he didn’t mind. When the Straubs were out of town, Mama and Daddy would get their aerobic exercise jumping. When we got worn out and sat down, he would command, “hand pump and gump!” (stand up and jump). And when we could all three jump together, Toby would sit on my lap while Matt made us go flying in the air, and T would yell “ENOOOORMOUS gumps!” When you see this joy, you can probably understand why we cautiously allowed it.

I insisted on dyeing eggs for Toby’s second Easter (trusting him to insist from now on). We bought a dozen white store eggs and hard-boiled them so he could draw on them with crayons. I thought it might be too early for this tradition, but it definitely wasn’t – he loved it! Our friend Beth came over for the event and I even convinced Matt to do one. We also headed over to our friends Todd and Ellen’s annual Saturday pre-Easter brunch, where Toby reassured at least two pregnant ladies (including Ellen, although we didn’t know it at the time) that having kids is the best idea ever. At least, I think that was the take-home message. Although Todd did say that Toby found a way to “explore” his thermostat so he had to call maintenance to fix it. You know, it had buttons and switches.

On the actual day of Easter, we got to hunt eggs with our generous friends the Millars, who have the perfect home for it. It was little Nadia’s first time, but Beatrice was an expert and showed Toby the ropes (and even let him drive her car).

We’ve also been working on getting in the kitchen to do more practical things than dyeing eggs. Like chocolate chip cookies! So practical. We’ve made them twice now, the second time in Oregon.

As the weather got even warmer, Toby explored new things to do outside. Sidewalk chalk is a favorite. When he got bored with the colors we have, he experimented with seeing which rocks can write.

For our water-loving boy, another favorite activity is splashing. Borrowed baby pools, sprinklers, or even just a pot with a funnel and a big bottle of water bring hours of enjoyment.

He’s been in ponds and lakes a couple of times, and REALLY loves them. Pools not so much at first – they get deep too fast – but they’re growing on him since Daddy signed him up for swim lessons in Eugene. Now he’s learning to jump in, kick off, roll over, and get dunked. Blowing bubbles is a work in progress. One of the nice things about our new apartment is the pool right outside, which Toby enjoyed the very afternoon we moved in. Here he is that day (you can also see the nice outdoorsy feel of our new place – we have deer and turkeys walking through all the time!)

Singing and dancing happen all the time. Sometimes I get out my guitar, and Toby usually requests Bella Ciao (no idea why) or Camptown Races (which he calls “Doo-da”). Singing Do Lord will entice him to jump up on the futon and dance around, or twirl until he falls over. Other current favorite songs are Froggie Went a-Courting and Tuwe Tuwe, a fun Ghanaian song covered by Sweet Honey in the Rock.  Tickling is another daily activity; Tobes likes to tempt visitors into tickle games by pulling up his shirt and then pulling it down and running away. Matt invented a game with Toby’s favorite rat puppet where the puppet hides in a box and them jumps out and tickles. But nobody wants to be always on the receiving end, so Toby also has fun tickling his teddy bear and cookie monster toy.

Pretend play is getting much more common and complex in our house. What started as cookie-monster-tickling has turned into baths, bedtime, and trips to the dining-room-chair playground complete with falling down and getting boo-boos kissed. The furry blue fellow also enjoys pony rides and cruising in the fire truck. Going to bed with teddy bears and then waking up again is also popular (but requires repeated “tucking in” by an adult). Fake crying is also fun – we all join in. (As you can guess, this started with us calling him on his first crocodile tears, but now it’s not unusual to see Toby chasing an adult around the house yelling, CRY!!)

We celebrated Toby’s 2^nd birthday just a month before leaving (we had the sprinkler in the yard and brownie sundaes).

Our last big adventure before the move was a round of visits to my side of the family. Toby played Risk with Uncle “Gaybub” and introduced him to the joys of Goodnight Moon videos on his laptop (Jacob was indulgent as ever).

Cousin Isaac inspired Toby to start peeing in the grass. Noni took all the little boys to the zoo together, and let them ride the train as much as they wanted (Toby liked the giraffes, but his favorite thing was the enormous mist fan.)

We had lovely visits with Nana, Aunt Jean, and Aunt Cathy & Uncle Kenny. And of course there was Chris and Ragan’s wedding, where Toby celebrated by playing enthusiastically with all the other kids and tearing up the dance floor. Our final months before the move were very full, but all good things.

The thing about the move that worried me the most was daycare. Each person whose shoulder I cried on assured me that Toby would adjust to his new environment much faster than we would, and I’m pleased to report that they were all correct. He didn’t cry at dropoff the morning of his sixth day at his new daycare, and hasn’t since. He pretends to call his teacher (Miss Jeanine) on the phone, cheerily talks about which person he’s going to hit today (usually Maggie, an unfortunate sign of comfortable continuity from Michigan), and begs to see the chickens as soon as he shows up. He also loves the little playground outside our apartment, the big one a few blocks away, and the unnaturally juicy and delicious invasive blackberries that grow everywhere here. So while Matt and I are painfully inching our way to comfort (setting up bank accounts, visiting the DMV, finding hockey and hiking spots and hopefully friends), Toby’s already a full-on Oregonian. (Here he is on a recent trip to the Pacific. Have I mentioned Oregon is GORGEOUS?)

Our most recent adventure was a Labor Day weekend cross-country flight, Oregon to NYC, to attend the wedding of our friends Colin and Rachel in the Catskills. It was a sweet reunion with old Michigan friends, including Joelyn and Mridul (who we hadn’t seen since January). Toby kept Joelyn entertained during the ceremony, Matt played the organ, and I officiated. Toby fell in love with creek walking. We returned refreshed and ready to embrace our new life as west-coasters.

In closing, in honor of my old bike (which I replaced with something that would serve me better in my new 8-mile round-trip commute), here’s Toby learning how to fix ‘er up with Grandpa Fred in our Michigan backyard in May.

Go west, young tot

The big news for this post is that we’re moving to Oregon! I was offered the job at the end of February and quickly accepted. I scheduled my defense (June 27^th) a few days later, and now we’re in full prep mode. I’m working even harder than before to finish, and we’re shedding all our extra belongings while we research childcare, how to move, and where to live. Exhilarating and terrifying! We’ll be living in Eugene for the first 6-9 months, and then moving to Salem for the remainder of the position, which is funded for four years. I’ll start applying for permanent jobs casually this fall, and seriously in fall 2015. We’ll be accepting visitors immediately. In fact, we’ve already scheduled the Royer-Millers!

If you’re interested in more details about the work, you can check out my new employer’s lab website and a recent newspaper article on the research I’ll be involved in. Brief cool version: I’ll be studying speciation and coevolution in Joshua Trees and their moth pollinators, which are mutually obligate – meaning the two species of Joshua Tree each have their own pollinator, and are pollinated by nothing else; the moths lay their eggs in Joshua Tree flowers and nowhere else. The tree and moth species are both sisters – each other’s most close relatives. How did this come to be?!? Stay tuned.

Matt has some exciting news too – his hockey team won the league championship! The last time this happened was his first season in the league, 5 years ago, so it’s an extra sweet way to end. Matt scored one goal and nearly scored another in a breathtaking short-handed breakaway. MommaSue, Grandpa Fred, Toby and I were all in attendance. Toby loves hockey games. For one thing, there are puddles of melted snow by the entrance you can splash in. Also, the goalie has three kids who are fun to play with. And sometimes, as you’re running back and forth in front of the glass, the audience erupts in applause and yells. Every time this happened, Toby would turn toward the crowd, his eyes shining like I’d never seen them before, and clap back at them. Like maybe they were all applauding for him. (I really couldn’t get him to pay attention to what was happening on the ice.) He also got his first taste of hot chocolate.

Now that hockey is over and it’s APRIL, we’re ready for the snow to be gone. It’s the snowiest winter since the 70’s at least – the snowiest winter ever in some parts of Michigan – so you all know it’s not just hyperbole. I enjoyed it until mid-March, and it didn’t start melting until a week or so later. But 2.5 months of snowpack takes a long time to melt, so we’re still working on it.

Most of the time the snow is just a pretty backdrop to freak-outs about finishing research and deciding how many daycare waitlists to sign up for. It’s nice to have an all-consuming almost-2-year-old to help me focus on the moment when the future feels overwhelming. Toby is a total joy. And a toddler terrorist. Sometimes he doesn't want a bath, or wants to put on his clothes BY HIMSELF, or wants to pour maple syrup all over the floor. And when he can't have things the way he wishes, he whines or screams or beats his head on the floor. Or some combination of all three. We try to be compassionate but firm and, above all, not laugh. We know that these are serious events for the Toblerone. And even at his screamiest, he's still the smartest, cutest, most life-worthwhile-making person in existence.

Even though putting a shirt on has been known to take 20 minutes, the increasing search for independence is really a fun theme right now. He’s started saying his name (“Topee”), and uses it to mean “I’m going to do it myself, stop trying to help.” Or it can also mean “mine.” Maybe what his name really means is, “get your paws off, you meddling adult!” On the other hand, he’s learning to ask for help sometimes instead of letting the frustration escalate, which is sweet and refreshing. FYI, one of the things he can do himself is hummus.

Of course, his name isn’t the only new thing Toby is saying. He’s reached the exponential increase of vocabulary stage, and we’re learning more every day about what’s going on in his head. For a while, his favorite words were “back” (both the body part and a place to put things), “more,” and “no.” Of course, “no” is still very popular, but now his other favorite words change rapidly. This week he likes to say “library” a lot. Last week it was “nutmeg.” But my favorites are “lap” and “hug,” always uttered as commands… or maybe declarations? Matt likes “umbrella” (ah-boo-gah), and “thank you” (ack-oo, most easily earned for peeling a clementine).

 

Part of what makes “lap” so great is the letter switches. W instead of L makes it wap. There is also H instead of S, which is a lot of fun. Other switches are common but unreliable. Usually between the two of us Matt and I can figure out what’s going on, although as the words get more complex the challenge increases. Toby is clearly too busy picking up new words to worry too much about pronounciation.

Another cool word he said relatively early was “penguin” (poo-gah), and for an interesting reason: he’s kind of afraid of them. He has a little blue computer that says letters and animals for each letter, but for P and X (penguin and ox) Toby prefers we push the button for him. Sometimes he runs away while we do it. Y (yak) is also a little sketchy. This has been going on for over a month. The only other thing we can tell he is afraid of is Humpty Dumpty. But for each of these things, the fear is united with fascination. He wants to look at pictures of Humpty Dumpty falling, but then he gets upset and closes the book. And opens it again.

One exciting new development since the last post is the banishment of the highchair tray – Toby sits at the table with us for meals now. The tray is still in use on pancake days, so that the tot can eat while he watches me cook. Most of the time he’d really rather just stand on a regular chair while he wreaks his havoc on whatever he can find on the table. Lately, that is often an art project. He’s started drawing enthusiastically with crayons, and constantly asks to paint. I still have some hippy organic edible paint from Christmas to make me feel better when he eats it. Just this week he’s taken to using the paintbrush. I think what he likes about it is how he can get the paint in his mouth without getting his hands dirty… but at least now he only eats the crayons when he’s really bored. Seriously, it’s super fun. He’s working on learning to do circles and lines. Daddy helps him with letters, which the tot finds extra cool. Here’s his very first crayon drawing (guess which parts I did!).

Another thing that crayons are good for, of course, is learning colors. Toby’s got the alphabet down, except for confusing lower-case g and e. He’s fascinated by shapes and knows most of them by name. He has started really enjoying counting too, always in order but skipping numbers unpredictably, into the teens. Colors are a little trickier. He gets that purple and blue are a thing (one, interchangeable thing), and sometimes gets red or green, but it doesn’t seem that interesting to him.

In spite of being far busier than I want to be at the moment, I had one great mom victory recently – making playdough. I tried once before and ended up with something that was too stiff and oily. Then a friend gave me a new recipe that includes cream of tartar and actually cooking the dough, and it’s fantastic! Toby wants to play with it all the time. He calls it “pahtoo” and usually says “eat” in the same breath. It’s hard to tell if he means “eight” (we have several cookie cutters we use with it, including an 8)… he does have a little playdough snarfing problem. I can’t blame him, he’s got his Daddy’s salty tooth. And those little balls we roll to squeeze through the garlic press fit so nicely in the mouth.

Recently Toby’s buddy Ben had his second birthday. This year his parents went all-out with a farm-and-cowboy themed party. They built their own toddler barn out of refrigerator boxes, made personalized stick horses to go with cowboy hats as favors (Toby’s has alphabet fabric), and found these crazy levitating cow balloons. The balloons and the barn were big hits with the eight little boys in attendance. There was a lot of running around screaming with joy.

I thought I would finish this post with a day-in-the-life summary, since this blog is Toby’s baby book and those little things are sweet to remember and easy to forget. Currently, our day starts at 5:30. I finally succeeded in night weaning, which was awesome. Toby and I were both finally ready, so it only involved 3-4 nights of intermittent wailing, and only one was truly sleepless. The downside is that Toby now gets up EARLY. We take turns getting up with him. Then he likes to postpone the morning diaper change as long as possible by dragging us around the house to play with things and pet the kitty (if she’s awake by then). Often he’ll play with his toy cell phone or yellow talking alphabet snail to make it through diapering and clothes. Sometimes he ends up tearing around the house with no shirt on, because once you’re upright, who’s going to wait for a shirt?

 

Breakfast is usually oatmeal and/or egg with toast. If we don’t make real oatmeal, we always make pretend oatmeal. Toby knows how it’s done. You need a pot, a couple of empty spice jars, a wooden spoon, and an enormous jug of maple syrup. The ingredients are nutmeg, maple syrup (hoo-pah aka map), and currants. In that order. It turns out you don’t actually need oatmeal to make oatmeal. Breakfast, and all meals, involve sitting at the table for ~5 minutes, sitting in one of our laps for ~10 minutes, and then attempting to drag us away from our barely-eaten food to read a book. Even on daycare days, we can usually squeeze in a few stories before it’s time to go.  (The next two pictures are of Toby with his daycare buddy, Lillian, during a weekend outing to the Kalamazoo Nature Center)

Toby goes to Tresha’s house three days a week. We try to get out the door by 8:15, and pick him up at 4:30. There are two other KBS kids there (Lillian and Jake), plus 2-3 others who come and go. He generally is excited to go by the time Monday rolls around. He’s just recently started talking about his “buddies,” and especially likes saying Jake’s name (“gack”). They read books together, play with the amazing stash of toys, have lunch, take a nap, snack, and play outside when the weather is good. There is always at least one art project every week. We usually get a cute update of Toby’s day. When we get home we have dinner, take a walk if it’s nice, and get some extra play in before the bedtime routine starts.

Matt usually has Toby on Thursdays and Fridays, and I have him on the weekend. We’ve been doing it fairly predictably this way since he was maybe 4 months old. We have lunch, nap, and snacks on the same schedule that Tresha keeps, and have a good time filling in the rest of the day. Toby goes grocery shopping with at least one of us every week. Matt usually takes him to our stupendous local library to pick out some books and maybe catch Friday story & craft time. He often spends an hour or two visiting one or both of our neighbor families with me – the Straubs have five little girls, who are fun to play with, and the Gelfands have three older kids and a tank of frogs. When we’re stuck in the house (as we have been often in this long, cold, snowy winter), we have a wonderful time playing in the sink (sometimes with bubbles), running around the basement, singing and playing at the piano, and of course reading lots of books. He’s just starting to expand his imaginary play from the realm of oatmeal to Cookie Monster. He has a little baby CM doll, which he likes to bathe, tickle, ride around on a tiny wooden horse, and put to bed. (The last one is my favorite: he says, “night-night!” and then THROWS Cookie over the rail and into the crib). The following picture is after playtime in the sink (which sometimes doubles as haircut time). I know when his hair is longer the styles possibilities will improve.

The bedtime routine is a treasured part of my day with Toby. Matt lets me run the show most nights. It starts with winding down with a good book or twenty. My current favorite is Sylvia Long’s Mother Goose.  (Thanks to Grammie for supplying this classy volume.) Toby calls it “Baa-baa,” because he has to start with “Baa-baa, black sheep.” That rhyme is right in the middle, and we generally go on from there. We often finish it, start from the beginning, and make it back to the middle. He loves interspersing singing and reciting, and particularly enjoys hand gestures. 

 

Then we begin the delicate initiation ritual. I’ve learned to never say it’s time to get ready for bed, oh no! It’s time to get ready for bath! Timing is key. If we start 15 minutes late, wailing will prevail. But if we’re headed toward nakedness by 7:15 the chances of a joyful bath are high. Just a few days ago Toby discovered he loves standing under the shower, so now we fill the tub with him in it. Because of the funny faces he makes, it took me a while to be confident he’s really enjoying it. Now we have to compassionately help him to understand that the shower can’t run constantly. Turning it off is very, very sad. After the teeth are brushed and the necessary scrubbing is done, if the sadness of turning off the shower fades (not guaranteed), another 5 – 15 minutes of joyful splashing ensues. Rubber duckies! Floaty boats! Measuring cups! And then the amazing event of dumping the water out and watching it go down the drain, not to be missed. Matt was just saying we need to get him into swimming lessons, because he can’t seem to get enough of the water. And I’m looking forward to some summer sprinkler time. 

Once we are able to extract him from the bath, hasty diaper-and-pajama torture is followed by night-night nursing and two books. His current favorites are Goodnight Moon and The Big Red Barn, although he also loves Night-Night, Little Pookie and The Going to Bed Book. I really love toddler books. So glad we have an enthusiastic reader.

I have ambitions of briefer, more frequent posts, but until the dissertation is defended, the more widely-spaced T.S. Schultz novels may be the format. I leave you with evidence of the strength of genetics: on a recent visit to Noni’s, he exhibited his biparentally-inherited tendency to poke fire with a stick. It warms the heart of pyro parents everywhere.

Happy (belated) New Year!

It’s hard to believe that it’s already 2014, and Toby is 19 months old. He’s playing lots of new funny physical games, illustrated by the first few videos in this post. But the big news over the December holidays was a language explosion! We knew Toby understood most of what we said to him, but (as you faithful readers know) we were able to keep a tally of the words he could say himself. Those days are over. From the proliferation of two-syllable words (some of them repetitive like “Vi-vi” for Violet or “wa-wa” for water) to startlingly clear pronunciation (cow, eye, pepper, and onion were early ones) to two-word sentences (the first one was “more num” just before the end of the year), it’s a language free-for-all at our house.

Now he says words we can’t remember modeling for him, and works really hard to come up with new sentences. The cutest was the morning he said “bye Daddy.” It started like badababa, pause, badada, pause, bye Daddy! We love watching the gears turning and communication getting easier and easier.

Another treat that comes with talking is using the phone. Of course, Toby has always loved phones, but now he’s more likely to listen to someone talking to him and even say a thing or two himself. If Matt calls me and I don’t answer, he usually puts Toby on and prompts him to leave a message. It usually goes something like this: “Are you talking to Mama? Mama! What do sheep say? Baa baa. What does the kitty say? Mahw.” And once in a while I even get to really talk with him on the phone – the first time was December 20th, and I asked him if he was having fun with Daddy. He said “Daddy.” Wheeee! Now I’m in danger of running out of space in my voice mail, since of course I can’t delete any of these messages.

Every parent knows their child has a super power, and Toby’s (currently) is the alphabet. He now knows at least 20 of the letters – if you point to it, he can say the name or the sound it makes; if you name it, he can pick it out from a list. He likes to sit and look at his alphabet blocks, naming the letters. Some of the ones we’re not sure he knows are sounds he can’t make yet (like Z, R, or S). I guess this isn’t surprising, since he’s loved books forever, but I’m still amazed. He also enjoys numbers, and recognizes several of them (1, 2, 9, and 10 for sure). I was shopping with him a few weeks ago and turned down aisle ten, and he pointed at the sign and said, “Ten!” I’m sure this is only the beginning of us being astounded by the things he knows. Maybe identifying dinosaurs will be next, if his affection for the book How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? is any indication.

Before Christmas we had our 3^rd annual caroling party. Our house was full with 11 kids and something like 20 adults, and Toby was enthusiastic, wandering from group to group and getting to know everyone. He learned about yo-yos from our neighbor Phil, had fun knocking over towers other people built, and ate cookies (although not as many as I did – he’s definitely more of a salty kid, always asking for crackers). It was fun to see his social side come out (he and Phil are in the lower left of the picture with kids).

Toby made his own Christmas presents for the immediate family this year. Finger paintings! It was messy and fun.

We had our first big snowfall before Christmas. Toby wasn’t sure what to do with it besides eat it, but he enjoyed being outside and wading through the drifts all bundled up.

There was plenty of traveling and visiting over Christmas. We spent several days in Ligonier with MommaSue, Grandpa Fred, and Aunts Becky and Rachael. Toby got some new blocks for Christmas and started suddenly building tall towers. He also got his very first hockey stick. We're still working on figuring out what to do with it.

Another highlight of our time in Pennsylvania was Toby bonding with Took, the new puppy. Okay, sort of bonding. Took is frisky enough to be a little intimidating, and was responsible for a big head bonk with an illegal check from behind (hockey for “pushing someone when they weren’t looking”), but Toby still found her fascinating.

On the drive back from PA we got to listen to some of the music from Matt’s childhood that Aunt Rachael converted to mp3s for us! Toby likes Cookie Monster. Although Cracker Monster might resonate more with him. We also were able to spend a few days with Noni, including a day trip to visit Grandpa and Grammie Royer. The tot really understands about opening presents now, and offers his services to anyone who isn’t enthusiastic – or fast enough – about opening their own. He still often prefers the box and ribbon to the present within, but no one is complaining.

One fun feature of the break was the dramatic hand injury I inflicted on myself (no worries, I made a complete recovery). I won’t go into too many details here, but it was in one end and out the other. Great photos available for those of you who enjoy that kind of thing - just email me. I had a bruise ¾ of the way to my elbow. Anyway, Matt changed a lot of diapers, so he was my hero even more than usual. 

The cousin reunion was jolly, with some toddler synergy. This time, Toby actually enjoyed Alten more than Isaac, since his older cousin can get around better. There was a fair bit of running around and around Noni’s downstairs loop. But the little ones took time to talk about their shared love of shoes. Toby also had the truly ecstatic experience of grabbing a ceiling fan with both hands. There were so many ceiling fans, he didn’t know what to do.

I had my own highlight, a 30-second Mary Poppins moment when Dan and Margo left us with all three boys and I entertained them. I made Matt take lots of pictures. Right after this, each boy headed in a different direction to get into his own special brand of trouble, and I stopped pretending I knew what I was doing.

We also got to see all three boy engaged in the same thing when there was food involved (in this case, frozen Royer-Miller strawberries). FYI, this is probably my favorite video to date. Alten is explaining the broken water jug to Toby.

There have been lots of other huge leaps since the holidays. He’s started dancing to music, or just when he's happy. And hooray, he is growing out of separation anxiety! When it’s time to go to daycare, he goes to the door and says “go.” When we get there, he runs into Tresha’s arms and waves goodbye to us. A few weeks ago Toby helped picked out a toddler potty (green and orange, looks like a frog, not something I could have EVER imagined having in my home pre-baby). He loves to sit on it, and once in a while something even goes in. He suddenly loves his pull toys.

He’s also suddenly really excited to help. He stands on a chair next to me while I cook, and has his own bowl of flour and oats to stir and spoon. Making oatmeal every morning is so much fun now. He has to go down to the basement whenever we transfer laundry, pulling clothes out and putting them in. And he’s GREAT at unloading the clean laundry in the living room. You know, spreading it out so we can see what to fold better. The way the socks arc through the air as he throws them over his shoulder is beautiful.

We continue to have a wonderful winter here, with loads of beautiful snow and spells of invigorating below-zero temps. I really, really love the snow. Toby likes to eat it and watch it fall. He fell in love with a sled we brought back for him (stored by Grandpa Royer since my own childhood), and we had a few days of fun pulling him around and down the hill behind our house. He mysteriously calls it “hoo-hoo.”

Then he fell out of love with his sled (maybe because he actually fell out of it, or maybe because the snow got too deep and icy), but he still likes to eat the snow, romp in it for short periods of time, and talk to the sled. The snow is really epic this year. It’s so drifty it’s hard to tell how much there is, but it’s well over a foot and has lingered for weeks. Our friend Colin and I took Toby cross-country skiing earlier this month with slightly more success than last year (he might have made it a mile before I went into emergency mode, singing all the alphabet variations of “C is for Cookies” twice to get back to the car.) Maybe next year we can get him his own skis.

We had a bittersweet event this month when we had to say goodbye to good friends Mridul Thomas and Joelyn de Lima. Mridul got a postdoc in Zurich (hooray!), but even though we were celebrating the wonderful professional progress, saying goodbye was heartbreaking. Joelyn has been Toby’s next-door Tia (we’re not allowed to call her Auntie) and an irreplaceable source of love and support for us. But even Toby couldn’t convince her to leave her husband behind and stay in Hickory Corners (I know, hard to believe, right? He’s SO cute). We’re hoping for a reunion in September at the latest.

My excuse for not posting last month was my own professional excitement – my first postdoc interview! I flew to Oregon for two days, and was away from home for 3½ total. Being away from Toby overnight for the first time was no fun, but other than that it was a great experience. I should know by the next post if we’re moving west in the summer. Aunt Rachael came up a few days before I left and stayed a few days after I came back to help us manage the upheaval.

She made a stressful time a lot more fun, and Toby LOVED having her around. He calls her “Wa” and likes her tricks. Especially the way she makes towers wibble-wobble and fall over. “Wobble” is now a new word. Which is good, because some of Toby’s towers are less stable than others. Stacking blocks is fine, pancakes are even better, but he stacks EVERYTHING now. And when he starts improvising (that's my camera lens cover on top)…

One thing that hasn’t changed is the Tober-tot’s tremendous appetite and affection for cutlery. He continues to beg for bits of raw onion when we’re cooking, eat things that are too spicy for Mama, and generally astound us with the quantity and variety of things he consumes. Here he stole Matt’s fork, leaving poor Daddy to make do with a toddler fork.