Category Archives: Uncategorized

Fun in the yard

Posted on by
Reply

I love this season.
The weather is great, the leaves are beautiful (more on that
later!) and its just a great time of year. We’ve been going
outside a lot lately, though not as much as I’d like to. It’s
still tough to coordinate sleeping/nursing/outside schedules,
but we manage. There is no shortage of raking to be done!! See
all the leaves on the ground in the picture and video? I raked
that part of the lawn clean about three times in the past week
and there are still tons of leaves on the trees! Last year the
previous owners did no raking, so when we moved in at the end
of October there were more leaves than we could rake. No
kidding! I was raking leaves this past spring :) There’s got to
be a more efficient way to handle this process, but for now
it’s a good excuse to go outside and it keeps us busy.

Here is a little (ok, long), mostly silent
video of them in the yard today.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im686PkgmNg]Notice his new
kicks?? Ok, probably hard to see in the video. I took a picture
of them, but it’s not really blog worthy :) The only way you
can tell they are new is because they are cleaner than his old
ones. We went to Kohl’s today and I told him we were going to
get new Vans. He was psyched! We found them on the shelf and he
grabbed them and put them in the stroller. I was showing him
other shoes (“these shoes have cool dump trucks on them.”
“look, it’s Elmo”), but he kept saying “no, want the Vans.”
Can’t argue there. When we got home he brought them in to show
Alan and promptly put them on. So we’re all set with sneakers
for now. No need for the Crocs this winter (though have you
seen the fleece lined crocs?).

Messing with Our Minds

Posted on by
Reply

Today, Tessa is trying to get him to get a
book off the bookshelf for her while she is nursing. It is
standing up so that the cover is facing out. He goes over to
the bookshelf and looks around. She says, the one on the top
shelf, standing facing out. He starts to grab a book laying it
its side under several other books and says, “I think this is
it.”

She says, “no no, the one on the
far right.” (Yes, he knows his left from his right.) He looks
around, with full body movement they way one does when looking
quickly around a shelf that is three times your size and then
goes right back to the same book and says, “I think this is
it,” and starts trying to pull it out from under the pile
again.

She says, “no no, to the right of
that, the one standing up.” Same thing: he looks around with
big sweeping motions, back to pulling on the same book, “I
think this one is it.”

“No, the one with
the letters R-O-B-I-N on it.” (Yes, he can pick out objects
just from a series of letters.) Same thing: big, fake-look,
sweeping scan of the shelf, and goes right back to pulling on
the same book, “I think this is it.”

After a couple more rounds like this she takes a
difference tact. His hobby horse is leaning against the shelf,
so she says, “You see your horse?” He goes over and touches the
horse’s head. “It is right next to your horse,” she says and he
grabs the book and brings it right over.

Now, I would not have thought too much of that but last
night, he gets a little too crazy in the tub with Eve, and
since he is already washed at this point, I just say, “so sad,”
grab him out of the tub, throw a towel over him, and tell him
to dry off. He wails for a second with a pissed cry, tries to
get back in, and failing to pierce my stellar tub defenses,
goes in a corner, squats down, and squeezes out a little pee
with a clearly defiant air about him saying, “you peed on the
floor.”

I grab him and put him back in
the tub, quickly finish up with Eve, whom I have some how
managed to keep from drowning all this time, and leave him in
the draining tub water to rinse the pee off his feet (less than
2″ of water: enough for rinsing pee, not enough to drown). As
I’m doing the post-bath thing with Eve on the changing table, I
hear a Little Lex voice talking about getting out of the tub
now. I go and look at him and say sternly, “you stay in the tub
until I am ready for you.” He obeys, I go back to Eve, and a
minute later he says, “you pooped in the tub. You peed on the
floor and then you pooped in the tub.”

I
am crushed at the sound of this. I walk to where I can see him
from their room, and ask, “did you poop in the tub?” He looks
me square I in the eyes and replies with a confident, “yeah.”
Dejected, I approach the tub to survey the carnage, but to my
great relief and confusion, I find none! Then, I look at him
grinning up at me and I realized exactly what was going
on.

He is 2. Not quite 2 and a half. And
he is already messing with our minds. As Tessa puts it, “we’re
in for a long life.”

Happy 6 Months to Eve!!

Posted on by
Reply

My baby is 6 months already!! My how time
flies. She’s such a happy baby too. Scooting around, jabbering
away, and smiling at everyone. I love her!!!

I saw a cool idea for a 1/2 yr birthday cake, but decided
that Alan and I don’t really need a cake today :) Especially
since we have pumpkin bread, halloween cookies, and ice cream
already. Happy 1/2 birthday to Eve anyway!

“You got in Eve’s crib”

Posted on by
Reply

Lex has been waking up before 6am
recently, which is just too early, so I leave him in his room
until at least 6am. Today it was about 6:15 when I got out of
bed. I went into his room and found him in the crib with Eve!!
First time for that. He was saying “You got in Eve’s crib. Lex
and Eve woke up. Lex and Eve ready to go downstairs.” Eve was
soooo not ready to be awake. She was on her belly, yawning and
drowsy eyed. I took him out and gave her back her plug and she
happily put her head back down and closed her eyes. This new
skill presents a bit of a challenge though. We’ll see if he
chooses to do this often. (He got out of his crib once, a long
time ago, but hasn’t done it since. Maybe he won’t do this
again either. One can hope.)

Tis the season

Posted on by
Reply

Fall is here. The days are getting shorter, the
weather is getting crisper, the leaves are falling and pumpkins
are here. We’ve had a few beautiful fall days with
jack-o-lantern carving, raking leaves, and baking pumpkin
bread. I know I’ll be raking as many leaves this year as I did
last year, but I’m hoping to stay on top of the task so it
doesn’t become quite as arduous as it was last year. We’ll see.
We carved pumpkins on Saturday with Alan’s parents. (yeah,
probably won’t last until Halloween, but oh well) Lex drew all
over the pumpkins (and himself and the table) with permanent
marker and took great thrill in the anticipation of putting his
hand into the pumpkin. He wouldn’t actually touch anything
inside, just sort of reached his hand in. Silly boy. Here are
some pictures and a movie.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KDV_XA7v4w]

Movies galore!

Posted on by
Reply

Friday night. Lex is eating dinner (you
can hear him in the background) and Eve is on the floor. She’s
moving pretty good these days!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUW_uBxxYwE]

Friday night, turned the camera on Lex having
dinner with the raccoon.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YQkC06jhcA]

All done eating. Time to play. I was hoping
he’d finish the puzzle while I was recording, but he can’t
quite get it. He’s done it once or twice. It’s a tough puzzle,
but a good next step from his other puzzles.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vggFCP2c_Tk]

Sleepy Eve

Posted on by
Reply

We put Eve to bed at 8pm last night and
she’s still sleeping! I didn’t even have to get up during the
night to replug her. I, of course, am up at 6am with Lex. Oh
well. Eve has started sleeping on her belly. We put her down on
her back and at some point during her sleep she rolls onto her
belly. I’ve found her that way for the past 5 times she’s
slept. She’s such a sweet sleeper! :)

“Lex and Eve woke up. Yeah!”

Posted on by
Reply

Lex fell asleep in the car on the way home
today (more on that below) and I brought him upstairs. This
used to work well, but not so much lately. In the process of
changing his diaper and closing the shade, he woke up. I left
him there anyway and went down to nurse Eve. I brought her up
to bed about 10 minutes ago, very tired and ready for sleep.
Lex was still awake. A few minutes later I hear Lex over the
monitor saying, “Lex and Eve woke up. Yeah!” over and over. I
left them alone for a few minutes then went up to find the
light on, the fan off, Eve grinning with her arm out of the
crib reaching for Lex and Lex just walking around. When I went
in he was very excited and told me again that they woke up and
“Want mommy and Lex and Eve to go downstairs.” Funny boy. I
explained the difference between being awake and waking up and
that he has to fall asleep before he can wake up :) Now they
are up there and both of them are talking and I’m pretty sure
the fan is off again. I sense a no-nap day today :/

I headed over to the Shoetorium today to try
to buy Lex some shoes. Grandpa and Grandma met me there to tend
to Eve while I shopped (a very difficult job, I know). I picked
that store because they have a very good reputation in the area
for accurately measuring shoe sizes and working well with kids.
The poor sales guy didn’t stand a chance with Lex. With great
patience and persistence we were able to get a size
measurement, but Lex would have no part of trying shoes on. He
cried and kicked and screamed and said over and over “want no
shoes, want no shoes.” He honestly sounded like I was torturing
him! So he’s either wearing too-small Crocs all winter (not
really an option, of course) or I’ll do what I did last time he
out grew his shoes — buy the exact same ones a size bigger :)
I’m in trouble they day the stop making Lex’s favorite
shoes!

A growing Eve

Posted on by
Reply

Lots from me today :) I wanted to share
(and document) Eve’s newest development. She can sit up! Just
in the past few days she’s getting pretty good at it. She can
sit up, unassisted, and play with toys or chew on her teething
biscuit or just watch Lex being silly. And when she gets tired,
she flops over and finds a new position she prefers better. So
funny. She also rolled from her back to her belly last night,
for the first time that I’m aware of. It was the middle of the
night and she was in her crib, so I’m pretty sure he did it by
herself, with no help from Lex. She squirms so much in her crib
that you never know where you’re going to find her. At 4am this
morning I went in to re-plug her and she was on her belly with
her head at the opposite end of the crib. I was feeling around
for awhile trying to figure out where exactly her mouth was so
I could get the plug in (didn’t want to turn on the lights).
She is also starting to get the idea of motion. On her belly
she can get hereslf completly turned around, she’s starting to
get her knees up under her and she can schooch forward and
backward and reach things. I even saw her up on her toes for a
quick second as she moved herself about an inch to the side. So
cool to watch these developments. She’ll be moving in no time
(*sniff*) and then I’ll really have my hands full!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD17CY8cuE4]