Simon says: Happy Passover!

Before anyone decides to bestow upon Simon his very own pair of metal keys, we probably should mention WHY we don't just let him hold ours. Simon likes to put keys in locks. Simon likes to put keys in screws (to unscrew things of course). Simon also really likes to put keys in outlets. Danger boy.

This week has been sunny and above seventy degrees every day (eat your heart out California! - no, no, we are sorry about the rain - really we are). We have yet to discover just how long Simon can stay at the park before asking to go home but have discovered that he can swing on the same swing for up to an hour without getting bored. The past two evenings he has been playing in the gated courtyard of our small townhouse complex with all of the other little kids. He is so excited to see them he can't control his enthusiasm and runs around in circles waving his hands in the air.

He has come up with a new obsession: keys (and not the toy versions). Bring out keys to unlock the gate or the door or the mailbox and he has a fit until he can hold them; take them away and his temper flares (the time out chair has not been lonely lately).

Simon says: Happy Birthday Auntie Tonya!

Last night was a long night. Simon was showing signs of teething and, after many stops and starts, appeared unable to sleep alone. He was brought into the big bed where he promptly fell asleep using 150% of the available space. After an hour or so Simon woke with a start; nightmare! He picked up Mama's arm, put it around him and went back to sleep (that is until he woke up in the wee hours to tell us about the shafts of light coming in from the window). Sleep or not, it was a sunny seventy degrees today; Simon and Matthew spent most of their day enjoying the City and the Park (and even had lunch with Hava).

Chicago Weekend Activity Report: Notebaert Nature Museum

Longest week of our lives? Probably not but it has been an incredibly complex week that we don't wish to repeat. Matthew started teaching again (two mornings a week) and took the wrong L line into the loop causing him to sprint to his first class. Hava went to Libertyville for a day (the same time Matthew was running through Chicago) and got on the wrong bus which turned out to be the right bus because the right bus would have made her miss the train. Matthew dealt with finding and scheduling a handyman to come out and fix all the bizarre little things wrong with our home. We all toured a second preschool. Hava worked from 8 am to 8:30 PM with a one hour and twenty minute break between meetings to run home, spend time with Simon before he went to sleep, and eat dinner. Some of Hava's team is in Korea, other members are in India, still others are in California. Motorola is truly global. Meetings are run through mobile conference calls. Unfortunately, scheduling a meeting in four very different time zones never works out well - next week is going to be much of the same.

Luckily, the preschool was perfect. It is, one might say, interesting from the outside but within the many rooms it is as adorable and safe and warm and inviting as any preschool could ever hope to be. Besides all the really cool learning stations, the science experiments, the frogs and guinea pig, the paintings, the young, enthusiastic, and interested teachers reading and singing and playing instruments, the indoor gym and outdoor play areas (two devoted solely to two year olds), the most impressive thing was how Simon transformed from our baby into a little boy right before our eyes - paying attention to the director and doing everything she asked. We've sent in our applications for three half-days a week of "Summer Camp" starting in late June and four half-days for the regular semester starting in the Fall. Since Simon has learned so much from his one-hour-a-week French class (and enjoys every minute of it), we are excited (but still a little nervous) to find out what he thinks of hours of play and instruction from adorable teachers with his parents nowhere to be found. We expect he'll be thrilled and that will make us just a little bit sad.

Something else about the preschool? IT HAS FREE PARKING FOR PARENTS! We can drive him there in the morning, park, and take the L three stops to the Loop. Ahhh...

Spring arrived over the weekend. Yes, it was still relatively cold (at least by California standards) and apparently last night there were many many tornadoes (we just heard wind and driving rain and lightening and THUNDER) but it was warm enough to spend time outside pointing out all the itsy bitsy green things appearing out of the ground and the plump brown things attached to the twigs in the trees. Simon, still a plant lover, seems interested in the change. He is also interested in spending half hour stretches or more on the swings at the park.

Simon's language skills (English and French) are blossoming. This morning he pointed to Mama's lunch and, *clearly*, said "what is that?" instead of what was once "wasa?" or, if we were lucky, "wasat?" Last night, instead of signing or saying "more?", he asked for "MORE PIZZA!" He knows almost all of the words to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." He can count to seven. When he wants something we've mostly stopped him from pointing and saying (the ultra annoying) "uhhhhh! uuuuhhh!" and taught him to point and say "please?"

Can't you just feel the fog of frustration lifting?

We've been having some trouble keeping him asleep for the past few nights and are now struggling with letting him put himself back to sleep. It still hurts to hear him cry but, if we respond, it makes matters worse; keeping us all up for a longer period than if we had just ignored him in the first place and continuing the cycle the next night and the night after that. Since it seems Simon is growing out of his crib soon anyway (he nearly crawled out the other night and he will soon be too tall for it), we want him trained to stay in bed once the cage/crib walls have gone. Ferberizing is a continuous process.

Favorite book: We bought Simon his first Curious George book the other day (the one where George gets high) and he is mesmerized.
Favorite song: Bonjour, Simon! (a song made up by his French school)
Favorite toy: Furby (loved so much he is broken)
Favorite DVD: Caillou (what? Elmo and the Teletubbies have been replaced by a cute cartoon boy?!)
Funniest thing in the world: When people get hit on the head or in the face with something.

If you enjoyed yesterday's post, you might also like to learn about Matthew's pregnancy and his successful attempt at lactation.

It's too bad we don't have the comments working so you can publicly admit if you were an April Fool.

So here is a map of the Motorola offices that we grabbed from Google today:

What's missing... CHICAGO! Know why it's missing? Because the Chicago offices are closing. See, just after Hava started working at Motorola, iDen (a Motorola group in Plantation, Florida) became part of Mobile Devices. Yesterday it was announced that the Chicago design team is moving to Florida. Stay tuned to see if the Kagles pack up their things, sell their house, and move across the country... AGAIN.

We have potty usage!

OK, no. Not really. Well, yes but not what all of you might deem as "correct" usage. This evening Simon asked to go "pee pee?" so Mama put him on the potty (with his clothes on). Simon stood up and indicated that Mama was just not doing it right and attempted to remove his clothes. Mama removed his pants and placed him on the potty. We waited. We watched. We listened and, as usual, nothing happened. Simon got off the potty, squatted, and held onto the potty while he pooped on the bathroom floor.

If you don't find that last part a really great sign, you're not the parent of a toddler.

Simon in the tub this evening.

The weekend started out with a trip to pick out a potty. Big boy Simon Kagle was, for some reason, really excited to get it home and give it a try. So Simon spent part of Saturday and part of Sunday sitting on the potty saying, but not making, "pee pee." Simon's Furby also spent time sitting on the potty; he even spent some time trapped in the potty. Because of the nature of potty dress, Simon also spent a lot of time running and playing around half naked. Here is where we get to do that "Simon is Amazing" thing by reiterating that Simon has peed during a diaper change once in his entire life (when he was a few weeks old) and he has only peed on one of us (Matthew) once - just before his very first bath. The kid has incredible bladder control. Nevertheless, even though it is really adorable to see Simon's little butt cheeks bounce while he runs around commando, it makes Matthew very nervous to see him naked on carpeting.

Other fun things this weekend: we bought Simon a tractor with Old MacDonald and his friends which he loves so much he doesn't even want to eat without it next to him. We walked Simon to the L, took the L to the pedway, took the pedway to Marshall Fields and had lunch overlooking downtown Chicago. We went swimming at the YMCA and, although his teeth chattered and his lips turned slightly purple in the 82 degree water, Simon loved every minute of it.

Simon says: Happy World Tuberculosis Day!

In honor of the occasion, we took Simon to visit his new/former pediatrician who ordered him a TB test. The pediatrician in question is new and former because unless Simon is ill and this doctor is the only pediatrician available in a 20 mile radius, he isn't going to be seeing Simon again. In fact, the whole experience was so miserably irritating that we're not even going to choose another doctor in the same practice - starting over completely seems the best course. Here is where we lament how every doctor Simon has had contact with up until yesterday, even in his previous HMO/Kaiser world, was professional and nurturing and gentle. This doctor had the bedside manner of a rabid sloth. Simon was a perfect little patient for the nurse who stuck him three times and then gave him stickers; the doctor couldn't even manage to measure Simon's head circumference without insisting he be fully restrained.

Because the doctor was impatient and the room was sterile and scary we couldn't get an accurate weight for Simon (though we know he is most likely slightly above average). His height is still in the 95th percentile at 36 inches (the only attribute of Simon which elicited the doctor's positive feedback). He is a healthy boy with the exception of his protein intake which this doctor felt was inadequate because Simon, so far, has chosen to be vegetarian. Not to be disparaging of people in the middle but there is some Midwestern folklore around here which leads people to believe that nuts, cheese, yogurt, beans, whole grains and tofu lack sufficient protein. In a restaurant the other day Hava saw a sign that read "Pasta comes with meatballs, sausage or 'Tofu'" (tofu was capialized, bolded, italicized, and in quotes just in case you didn't think it was a strange enough option).

We Kagles are currently living deep in the underbelly of the Chicago preschool/daycare system. Like any big city, there are lots of options and lots of rumors about wait lists and limiting your child's future educational opportunities by making the wrong decision. We are pretty confident that Simon will end up well adjusted, nice, funny and smart no matter which preschool option we choose; nevertheless, the choice is completely stressful. For one thing, we recently discovered that waiting until Simon is 2 before enrolling him in a program opens up an entirely different world than enrolling him now. At 2 Simon will be magically transformed from "toddler" to "preschooler" but that rule is not universal - some programs don't start until 2.5 or 3. Another frustration has been the lack of part time programs. Some places won't let you enroll unless they can hold your kid hostage ten hours a day, five days a week; other programs let you pay for full time but you can show up or not, take your kid home in the middle of the day, or not. We can't even fathom how a parent survives the guilt of placing a toddler in full time care; we're having trouble imagining Simon without us in a preschool setting half-a-day two or three days a week. Some programs are accredited, most are not. Most accredited preschools are religious based and we're just not going there.

Right now we have it narrowed down to two private schools. Neither is close to work, one is close to the L; one of us may have to drive Simon to school, drive back home to park, walk to the L and take the L into work (an hour long journey at best). We'll be touring these two programs over the next two weeks and hope to snag one of those elusive slots soon.

Last minute addendum: it took Hava 15 hours today to realize she had her watch on backward and was only wearing one earring. Any disguise of coolness she may have being pulling off with the other designers is surely lost.

So the Rubensons are a bit more casual than the Kagles. What is Grammy and Grumpy on one side is Grandmother and Grandfather on the other. While urinate, defecate, bowel movement, BM, and toilet are the customary terminology for the Kagles, pee pee, poo, and potty are the words the Rubenson's use when they visit the bathroom. This morning Simon walked in on Matthew relieving himself of liquid waste. Matthew (to counter balance last night's bathroom revelation) sang that oh-so-popular "urinate, urinate, urinate, urinate!" song; Simon pointed at the device used to flush away bodily waste and enthusiastically yelled "pee pee!"

Mama's boy.

(Simon asked to sit on the toilet/potty again this evening. No pee pee yet but lots of anticipation.)

***LATE BREAKING NEWS***

Holy potty training, Batman! Not but an hour ago, when Simon was in the bath he said "pee pee?" over and over and pointed to the toilet. Before Mama had time to hyperventilate from the excitement, she managed to get the boy sitting on the toilet where he looked down at the pee pee place and waited... Nothing happened but seeing as we don't even own any potty training paraphernalia yet and haven't discussed when and how we will take care of those details, we think this is a pretty amazing development. More news as events warrant; now back to the original post...

To California and back in a weekend.

We are back, having spent quality time with Grandpa Rubenson who has a very hard time hearing and not such a great time talking but, at 89, even in heart and kidney failure, is still sharp. It was good to see him and have him see us. Simon enjoyed spending time with his family again (including large dogs he gently pat and barked at and learned how to push away when they came in for full-face licks). Since sixty degrees is now really warm for us, we spent quite a bit of time outdoors seeing green grass and budding trees. Simon wanted to be held during our trip to the levee of the American River and walking around Old Sacramento's cobble streets, wooden sidewalks and mini wharf but his meany parents made him run after them at least *part* of the time. We were tempted to go "back home" which is a confusing assertion when home is Chicago but still feels like Mountain View (a mere two hours from Sacramento). We were also tempted to demand bay area friends drive to Sacramento to see us for that whole hour or two we had available. Reality took over and we did neither.

Simon started to say "no-k" when he means "no, thank you" and "ok" when he means "yes." "Noooooooo!" is reserved for times like being on an airplane for four hours without a nap and having his parents insist he sit on their lap because the airplane is landing. He also continued his new bath time routine of making sure all of the bath toys are put away and the water drains completely before getting out of the tub - even if his teeth are chattering and goose bumps have formed over his entire body. Late last week, with Grandparents' Kagle around, he started to eat things outside of his comfort zone; he continued that pattern over the weekend. He also continued to eat everything in sight (the two are probably connected).

As is his way, Simon refused to sleep anywhere outside of home and proved that the porta-crib is no longer useful. We drove him around until he passed out but that only worked until he woke up and screamed. We tried singing and rubbing his back for an hour. We tried letting him scream in the porta-crib until he did a front flip over the side into the wooden dresser. We tried letting him watch the same iloveegg episode over and over in bed with the lights out but the repetition didn't even faze him. Finally we gave up and just ignored the boy as he SANG AT FULL VOLUME between us until midnight (and he woke up at 5 am). Simon is not a travel sleeper. We wonder how we can get one of those.

Happy Twenty-One months to Simon!

We're going to have a website hiatus while we fly back to California to visit Simon's Great Grandpa Rubenson (89 years old) who isn't feeling well.

Simon's new thing is pretending to sleep in the bed under the blankets with the lights off. Let's all hope he wants to play his new game on the plane.