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.

The two little boys are growing up!

Cameron. Loves. Food.

Mommy's milk? He'll take it for sustenance.
Baby food? So not happening.
Solid food? Mommy food? Daddy food? Andrew food? Can we say excited, bouncing, squealing baby?

The baby theorists tell us that we should be slowly introducing foods and textures to Cameron a little at a time. If this is the goal we have abysmally failed. Cameron wants to eat absolutely everything we eat.  Wendy and I have at times had to become very creative in our food cutting and slicing skills so that Cameron can eat the food that everyone else is eating and that he so enjoys.

Artisan wheat bread? Loved it.
Asparagas? Loved it.
Carrots/Celery? Loved them.
Apples/pears? Love them.

The only thing that Cameron will refuse is anything pureed or that resembles baby food in any way.

Andrew gets ready by himself

Today Wendy and the boys were upstairs hobnobbing with Marsha upstairs. Wendy mentioned that Andrew should take a shower. No usually this prompts tears; until of course he's in the water at which point he giggles uncontrollably.  This time...was different.

Leaving Marsha and Wendy upstairs Andrew came downstairs and happily engaged in an Andrew project which Wendy shortly discovered as she came down the stairs.  A shirt here, a left shoe here, a right shoe there, continuing on until there were no clothes remaining. The sight at the end of the trail of clothes? A naked Andrew on the diaper changing table removing the tabs of his diaper. He was so excited for his shower, and obviously the parents weren't moving fast enough, so he got ready for his shower by himself. Oh, and he giggled the entire time while in the shower, just in case you were wondering. 

And Daddy sighs

I know, I know. All you experienced Grandparents and decades long parents are going to roll your eyes at me. Still, it is surprising how often my little toddler and baby surprise me with their capabilities and how quickly they seem to be growing up. I miss my "butterfly" crawling infant at the same time I'm proud of him for learning to actually pull himself up and cruise around the room. I imagine this feeling is only going to get worse as they "actually" grow up. 

Are you a chef?

"Are you a chef?" This was the question the cashier at the supermarket posed to me after taking a look into my shopping cart and seeing a lot of produce...and not much else. I regretfully replied that I was not, but did request his rationalization for asking. His response, "Oh, usually the only time we see this much produce and so little of anything means that it's either a chef or a caterer." Does this mean that I'm a legitimate foody now?

Swim Fins

Due to my participation in a Health and Fitness challenge competition I've started to work out every day. This of course awakened my oft expressed but never accomplished desire to do triathlons. Thus, for the past week my workout bag has been rotating through running/biking and swimming gear.

I went swimming yesterday. When packing my bags for my 7 AM workout I took out my swim fins and paddles and placed them on the floor. I forgot to put the swim fins and paddles away in the closet prior to heading out to workout and work.

At 10:30 AM I received the following text from Wendy

Andrew: (Showing me your fins) Dada!

Me: Yes, Daddy uses that to swim

Andrew: Me!

Looks like you'll need to go swimming with Andrew

I responded that we would have to go swimming on Saturday. Wendy relayed this exciting information to Andrew. Andrew, of course immediately dropped what he was doing and started digging around in the storage room. Five minutes later he came out presenting his prize for Wendy to examine. He had searched and found the swim diapers. Andrew was ready to go swimming.

Later, when I came home. Andrew very excitedly brought me, one at a time, both of my fins, both of my paddles, and also a swim diaper. Appears, he wants to go swimming.

So that Saturday swim date I originally planned? Canceled.

We're going swimming tomorrow.