Wesley's Climbing Escapades

As I've mentioned before, Wesley is my climber. He loves to be up high and especially finds great delight in climbing things he knows he shouldn't. But don't take my word for it! See for yourself:

The table is an obvious favorite. He loves to climb on it and jump around, chanting, "Dance! Dance! Dance!" Check out these mischievous smiles!

He also loves unscrewing parts of the light fixture.

He also likes to climb the piano. We often keep the piano bench upside down to thwart him, but he finds it almost as easy to climb on the couch and hoist himself up onto the piano lid and inch along it. (Again, note the smile...)

It's all in an effort to get the phone.

Or to change the settings on the thermostat.

I usually make dinner in about 1-minute increments. I cook, get Wesley down from the table, cook, get him down from the piano, cook, lift him down from the table and fix the light, cook, get him down from the piano and reset the thermostat, cook... (In fact, I just now stopped typing to get him down from sitting on the piano!)

He also learned how to climb up the bunk bed right after his first birthday, which is insane. When he first learned he would climb on Talmage's train table and pull himself up onto the top of the bottom footboard...

...then lift himself up to the top footboard...

...then hoist himself up...

...and flip over the end.

Now he knows how to use the ladder. Either way, he's incredibly quick about it and I can't let him go downstairs alone unsupervised for a minute or he'll usually end up running around on the bunk bed or sitting in the bathroom sink with the water pouring all over him.

He just thinks it's so fun!

But even though his climbing antics keep me on my toes all day and try my patience a bit, I absolutely cannot resist this boy and his sunshiney smile!

Boys are Fun!

I love playing with the boys! I love their sense of adventure, the games they engage in, their endless energy, and their desire to build (and destroy).

 They love jumping from the piano bench to the couch.

Step-by-step action shots:

Of course Wesley loves to do it, too. He just doesn't jump quite as far.

The stomp rocket my parents gave Talmage for his birthday is a big hit outside! Talmage gets very into it, and actually makes it fly quite high.

Wesley also figured out how to do it all by himself.

The other day we took down his train tracks and flipped his train table over for an old-fashioned game of tabletop ninepins! My sister got me this game in Philadelphia when she was in high school--10+ years ago.

Oh, play-dough. How we love you.

Wesley adores his big brother!!

Tinkertoys are some of the best classic toys out there! We built a church and a temple one night as part of Family Home Evening.

Sam took the boys on a little Father-Son outing to ride the MD Anderson train around Hermann Park in Houston. Even though it was pretty cold (for Houston!), the boys loved it.

Some Recent Injuries

Injuries are fairly commonplace around here--Wesley is so active and adventurous that he is always getting himself into difficult scrapes and creating problems out of seemingly innocent situations. He will create choking hazards as he bites wheels off of toy cars, trip, fall, and hit just the right way to split his head open or fill his mouth with blood, intentionally lie down in the bathtub and try to slurp up the water (we mainly stick to showers)...you get the idea.

But a bad burn was, thankfully, a new experience for me (we have a lock on our oven and covers on the burner knobs since Wesley climbs up the oven, and somehow we've always been able to keep his hands away from hot things on the stove). But, once again a seemingly innocent situation ended in a pretty bad injury. The boys were playing with the lamp Wesley has in his room, and one of them took the lampshade off. The lamp had been on for a few minutes and Wesley grabbed the lightbulb and started screaming.

I didn't think it was a big deal (I knew the lightbulbs got hot, but I didn't realize how hot they actually get! He only touched it for a second!), so I picked him up and tried to soothe him for a few minutes before I realized how hurt his hand really was. It was a vicious red color and after a few minutes, huge blisters began forming down his index finger and across the top of his palm. I rubbed some olive oil on it and gave him some ibuprofen a couple of times that day. By the next day, he was feeling fine!

I couldn't capture his wounds very well on camera, but you get the general idea.






Of course, his injuries have taken a while to heal. It's been a week and a half and his fingers are still sporting nasty raw marks with dead skin and bleeding scabs. But they're looking so much better. He has loved being able to show people his burns. He has also loved inspecting them himself, picking at them, and showing me the latest development with a long, pitiful, "Ooooohhhhhh." I think he has rather enjoyed himself!

This was about 5 days later--again, it looked MUCH worse in person. :(

His morbid fascination! Love his face. Half smile, half grimace.

It didn't help matters any that Talmage had woken up the night before crying because he had fallen out of bed and hit his mouth on the bookshelf. He stopped crying quickly so I saw no need to inspect his injury in the light. But that morning when he came walking out I saw that his lip was about twice its normal side and he had a lovely gash across his chin. He and Wesley got to be injury buddies that day.

This was taken around noon that day, when the swelling had mostly subsided.

A while prior to these incidents, Wesley had tripped over a pillow lying on the floor and hit his head. My back happened to be turned to him so I didn't see exactly what his head hit, but I think it hit the hinge on the closet door, which protrudes 1/2 inch or so from the wall. His head was bleeding for quite some time, but the gash was only 1/4" long or so, although it looked somewhat deep. I finally decided against stitches since the wound was so small (a scar would be manly anyway, right?) and just kept changing the band-aid until it stopped bleeding. It has healed, but he does have a pretty nice little scar there. Maybe I should have taken him in for stitches, but decisions like that are not taken lightly when your husband is a grad student!

So yes, the injuries abound and I'm sure as the boys continue to grow and become more involved and active their injuries will not slow down. At least they're cheerful about it!

Fun on the Slide

I was helping a friend move and she gave us this slide! I knew the boys would be very excited about it for a few days, so I stuck it in the living room until the newness wore off, after which I planned to stick it outside. But after Wesley took a nasty tumble off the top, flipping backwards from standing position and landing smack on his head on the tile floor, giving him several large bruises/goose eggs, we put it outside earlier than planned.

Here are some pictures to show how enthused Wesley was about it! Talmage loved it almost as much--he just happened to be napping while I was taking these pictures.

Wesley learned pretty quickly that his momentum carried him off the end of the slide with an unpleasant bump if he slid down on his bottom. So he learned to start sliding down and keep holding onto the top of the slide, which would pivot his body around to his tummy! Sometimes, though, it meant he was only halfway on the slide while he went down. It always gave Mommy a bit of a jolt in the stomach to see him nearly flip over the side.

I can't believe how big my boy is getting!

Just One of the Many Reasons we Love Kroger

It is the only grocery store I frequent that has the near-essential "car carts." :)

Faces to Love

So why the long break? Well, first the computer was filled up with pictures and I couldn't put more on until I backed them up on the external hard drive, but I didn't want to do that until I had the time to organize them.

Then the camera broke.

And blogger had problems.

And I started as a new consultant with Usborne Books.

And I took on new piano students.

And my baby grew into a toddler who climbs. everything. all. day.

And...life just got crazy! I got out of the habit and by the time I was ready to revisit blogging, I didn't even know where to start. But I'll try valiantly to stick with it!

For now, here are some pretty cute faces I get to see on a regular basis. :)

Mr. Wesley enjoys raiding the pantry. The buckets of flour are the perfect height for him to stand on and get into things to his heart's content.

This table has many good uses. Wesley especially enjoys treating it like a jungle gym.

It's so cute to see him learn things from Talmage! He started "pretending" at just over a year, although I'm sure he's mostly just copying Talmage. He pretends pans are his trains, and his doggie act is hilarious! He crawls around on all fours with his mouth wide open, panting.

We made Christmas cookies back in December. Somebody loved helping with the cookie cutters!

Talmage is quite obsessed with his bristle blocks. They are strewn about the house during most of his waking hours. He builds truck after truck with them. I loved this grader he built!

I just loved this scene the boys set up out on the patio. They play together so wonderfully! (except when they don't...)

First day of Sunbeams!!! That tie's just a bit too big still.

Wesley's chubby cheeks sticking out the sides of the safety goggles crack me up.

And so does this.

Sometimes when Talmage hears Wesley wake up from his nap, he buys me a bit more time by going down to his room and climbing into his crib with him to entertain him. This day he kept him entertained for quite some time and when I came down this is what I saw! Big brothers are the best! :)

Like I said, Wesley treats the table as a jungle gym (it's a counter-height one), and he knows he is not supposed to climb on it. But even though he was blatantly ignoring my instructions, I couldn't help but take advantage of the picturesque moment of him reading on the table. He's a little bookworm these days!