Helping Hands

Little Philip has really come into his own in the last month. Maybe it was the tubes or maybe it is just a developmental moment. At any rate, he has some really good new behaviors and some really bad new behaviors. Temper tantrums have begun. When he does not want to come to Mommy or Daddy he will pull his arms in tight to his side, shriek and stomp his feet. We, of course, take these moments to practice gentle discipline and he quickly stops and gives a kiss to apologize. This is a small challenge compared to the many new good behaviors he is exhibiting. For instance, he loves to help take his clothes off (he has always loved his birthday suit) before a bath or getting into his pajamas. His favorite part is taking whatever piece of clothing he has just removed and running over to the dirty clothes hamper and putting it in. Socks are his favorite. He also loves to help empty the dishwasher, but Mommy only lets him hand her the melamine and plastic items after one of the rimmed soup bowls went crashing to the tile floor. It happened before Mommy could even see her helping boy's efforts. Philip immediately put his finger in his mouth, looked up with doe eyes and said "uh-oh."

Natchez

This past weekend the family, with Nee Nee along to help, travelled to Natchez for Maggie's funeral. Though the occasion was sad it was joyful in many ways that Maggie was no longer suffering from her fight with cancer. Maggie owned a historic home, Texada, which was the first brick house in Mississippi, and ran a bed-and-breakfast.

Lil Philip enjoyed seeing all his cousins and he is looking forward to the Moss beach reunion that was started by Maggie and Boompa. Maggie's obituary from the Natchez Democrat is attached by clicking on "Natchez" at the top.

GUCK!

While Mommy was in the shower this morning she heard quite a commotion from Daddy. Soon afterwards, the Philippians came bounding into the bathroom, excited that Little Philip had a new first word. Apparently Daddy was taking Little Philip into his room for a diaper change and on the way in, Little Philip pointed above the door in his bedroom, and yelled GUCK! There is a wooden painted "guck" above his door that his daddy painted sometime during childhood. The "guck" has moved from room to room, often because Mommy downgrades the guck to a bathroom or closet, rather than prominently displaying it next to the china as Daddy has done. Nevertheless, our new word is exciting! Maybe by this time in two more years, Little Philip can go guck hunting with Bop-Bop Moss.

Tubes and Such

After four double ear infections in just 17 months, Little Philip got tubes in his ears on Thursday. The procedure was super quick and super easy. We were home by 9:00 a.m. and after falling asleep in the car on the way home, Little Philip slept until 12:00 noon. We are hoping this means no more ear infections and also an increase in "real" words and phrases. For now, here is our complete vocabulary: "RaRa" for Riley (the dog), "Mama", "Dada", "knock-knock", "cah" for cat, "jsshh" for juice, "nose", "buh-bye", "no-no", and the original first word - "uh-oh."