The little doctor...

Last semester one the classes that I took was a physical assessment class.  For this class I had to record and practice assessments on a lot of my relatives (who were amazingly willing to let me poke and prod them).

Andrew thought that the entire process was extraordinarily fun. Every time that I assessed a cousin, parent, or sibling I also had to assess Andrew.  Shining lights into his eyes? No problem. Looking into his ears? No problem. Percussing his tummy? No problem.  At the end of the semester I was even able to do a full 15-20 minute physical exam on him without him becoming bored or distracted.  He loved the process...and all the equipment required for it.

So when we were looking for "bribe" toys to reward Andrew during toilet training we found a complete "doctor's set" for him.  He has his own bag, stethoscope, syringe, blood pressure cuff, thermometer, band-aid, and otoscope.

Of course, as soon as he "earned" each of his doctor set pieces he had to instantly test them out on Daddy.

Using correct technique: pulling ear up and back

Cameron wants to try too!

Bike ride at the park

As a last hurrah before I start summer semester on Monday we decided to go on a bike ride on Saturday. The original plan was to go to Antelope Island. This plan died for two reasons: no one else was free to go with us, and there was a 80% chance of rain. Not the ideal time to go to Antelope Island for a relaxing bike ride.

We didn't want to completely eliminate the idea so we snuck in a bike ride at the local Sugarhouse Park before the torrential rain actually started. Andrew fully bought into this idea. We bought him a new bike helmet; which once we had him try it on never left his head. There was a constant chorus of "Bike Ride! Bike Ride!" all the way to the park.  

Balance Bike

Helmet did not come off; even on the playground

May 16, 2015

Cameron the Explorer

Cameron wants to change his job description. Family crawler just is not enough excitement anymore.  He would much prefer to be an explorer.

http://www.themartinique.com/baby.html

Caving: In our brand new, extremely nice kitchen, we have some very nice, large drawers and cabinets.  Cameron often opens the cabinets and pulls out pots and pans to crash and bang around. One day ,Cameron decided that he was going to switch things up; instead of pulling the pots out; he went into the cabinet, and closed the door. Wendy heard Cameron making squealing happy noises. He had discovered spelunking.

Climbing: He's also a climber. We were upstairs eating Marshmallow Matey's with Andrew when we suddenly saw little Cameron's head pop up above the opposite side of the table. Accompanied of course with a face wide grin and a giggle. Wendy's reaction illustrates our thought process perfectly, "Wait...you're not that tall!" Little Cameron had pushed over a riding tractor toy, climbed on the top of the tractor, and then used the tractor's height to pull himself up so he could see over the table. I had to admire his almost 9 month ingenuity.

No hands:
Cameron's been one-handed cruising and standing for a while now. Today, Cameron took his hand off the supporting wall and stood for a few seconds. He even took a half step forward before plopping onto the ground. No faceplant fortunately.

Heart Sounds

Yesterday while I was at school Andrew found my stethoscope. 

His stuffed little monkey and little Cameron became his patients. I'm told it was very cute.

I don't think he found any heart sounds on monkey. 

Nice haircut!

"Did you get a haircut?"
I responded in the affirmative to the girl's question.
"It looks nice...it's very slimming to your face!"
I thanked her for her comment.

I didn't tell her that I didn't think that it was the haircut that I got that was slimming my face; it was the three weeks of six days a week, 45 minutes of cardio that had the slimming effect on my face.

I did appreciate her noticing though. :)

The game of life!

Blue is for boys.

Pink is for girls.

Any questions?

To entertain Andrew this afternoon Wendy pulled out the board game of life. Andrew was not interested in actually playing the game. But he loved playing with the cars and the people.  He designated the roles of all the people when he placed them in the cars

MaMa's were always pink.

DaDa's were always blue. 

Additional pegs in the cars were designated "bebe" 

As I can recall we have never specifically reinforced these genderized colors for our babies. Andrew's comfort blanket is a nice pastel yellow. Somehow, he has still picked up on the color separation. He's not alone. Being a graduate student I'm constantly looking up research articles on the subjects in my classes. I might was well look something up to satisfy my own curiosity as well, right?

It appears that there has been fairly extensive research done on the gender-stereotyped color preferences and when they develop. Between the age of 2 and 3 is when children start to actively search out gender-related information (Sozuls et al., 2009). At age 2 boys choose the color pink at a rate slightly below girls. From that age forward girls show an increasing preference for pink and boys show an increasing avoidance of pink.  By age 2.5 (just six months later) girls will strongly prefer pink over blue and boys will strongly avoid pink (Lobue & DeLoache, 2011). 

They learn pretty quickly once they start looking don't they?

References:
LoBue, V., & DeLoache, J. S. (2011). Pretty in pink: The early development of gender-stereotyped colour preferences. British Journal Of Developmental Psychology, 29(3), 656-667. doi:10.1111/j.2044-835X.2011.02027.x

Zosuls, K. M., Ruble, D. N., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Shrout, P. E., Borstein, M. H., & Greulich, F. K. (2009). The acquisition of gender labels in infancy: Implications for gender-typed play. Developmental Psychology, 45, 688–701.

Photo by Liz Gray. Lizlogic.wordpress.com

Night owl cardio.

I came to a conclusion today while finishing up my 12:30 AM workout at the local 24 hour fitness. "I like exercising at night." 

When I signed the contract for the 24 hour fitness gym I thought it was for one reason; it had the best pool out of the three gyms I evaluated. In the last two weeks I have used the pool twice. I have taken advantage of the 24 hour twice as much. More than once it's been me, the cleaning lady, the guy at the front desk, and one or two HUGE guys throwing around weights at 11 PM. 

After realizing I prefer working out at night, I thought of possible reasons.  

1. I'm more of a night person than a morning person. I find it far easier to stay up late to get my cardio than to get up early. I blame years of having to get up to go swimming for making me hate waking up to exercise.
2. It helps me relax from the stresses of the day; especially when those stresses involve school. 
3. It makes my "morning weight" a little bit better. :)
4. I don't have to fight anyone for a parking spot or cardio machine spot.
5. I've had more success in maintaining an exercise program at night than in the morning.

I am now going to try to be a night owl exerciser.