with my 2yr old, then he’ll be 3yrs! It occurred
to me the other day that he’s no longer in the “toddler”
category and I’m going to have to start calling him a
“preschooler.” Can I use that term even if he isn’t in
preschool? Alan says until they start school everyone is a
preschooler :) Anyway, I gots a party to plan!!
It’s official – Eve is weaned. And she
effectively did it herself. Tuesday night we got some books and
sat down to read and nurse, as is our normal routine. Eve was
very happy about her book and did not want to nurse. I asked if
she wanted to nurse and pulled at my shirt (the baby sign for
nursing), normally she nods and tugs at my shirt eagerly then
tries to get herself into the nursing position, but Tuesday
night she just ignored me and tried to get me to read her book
instead. So she went to bed with no nursing. On Wednesday and
Thursday I asked her if she wanted to nurse at all the regular
nursing times (morning, before pm nap, and night) but she
always crawled away or ignored me. Wednesday night she slept
through the night, however last night she was up at 2:00am
wailing. I tried to soothe her and give her the plug, but she’d
have none of it. I put Lex in my bed (he woke up saying “Eve is
angry”) then I sat on the floor with her and for the first time
in days she tried really hard to nurse. I thought long and hard
about it (parenting is full of tough decisions) but decided not
to. Instead I snuggled her and told her that she’s getting to
be a big girl and we are all done nursing and I love her and
will always cuddle and other sweet things. Oddly enough, she
settled right down. After a few minutes I put her pacifier in
her hand and she popped it right into her mouth (instead of
throwing it across the room like she’d been doing). We stayed
that way for awhile, sitting on the floor, rocking back and
forth, me whispering sweet nothings to her, and her falling
asleep on me. It was sweet and a little sad to say goodbye to
the nursing connection.
Lex found my measuring tape and decided it
was time to “measure my little sister.” He said that several
times, but of course wouldn’t say it when the camera was on. Oh
well. He determined that Eve is “1” and he is “2”. I don’t
think he fully understands what he’s measuring :)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRBkCl1AE84]
After a crazy morning (no naps, lots of
crabby) we made it out to the playground, mostly for my sanity.
It was in the 80s and Lex wouldn’t put on shorts, but agreed to
bring shorts and a t-shirt along if I let him wear his PJs.
Luckily Eve, so far, will wear whatever I put on her. So off we
went, Eve in an adorable summer outfit and Lex in his PJs. :)
It was hot, hot, hot though, so after he got all red and sweaty
he finally asked for his summer clothes. Funny enough, today is
the day he decided to start wearing slippers, after a long,
cold winter of refusing. My son is a bit of a kook.
She’s so
Lex in
Eve with
There’s
I tried
PS. I know some of you have been
banned from reading blogger at work, so I’m making a real
effort to get the photos.datdec.com site updated again. Gotta
reinstall software and etc. I’ll keep ya posted!
The drawback to summer in the suburbs,
with all the open doors and windows, is that the whole
neighborhood hears with I loose my temper and yell at my son
:(
Here are a few videos of Eve kicking a
little ball at my parents house. She’s so funny.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9E9RyqmH34]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-ogamOkXgw]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqUAQDOMvBk]
Just to show you, he doesn’t always get it
right. He was excited to get the cream cheese out of the
fridge, but decided to stop and spell it first. When I tried to
show him the right way, he decided “just want to eat lunch
now.”
We’ve been having a lot of fun these past
few days in our backyard. The kids are both old enough to play
and/or help as we’ve been cleaning up the backyard, clearing
out the pricker bushes and planting our first
raised bed garden, complete with green bean seeds! As
Alan posted earlier, Lex has been super helpful shoveling dirt.
Today he helped me rake and water the new garden. We also got
out the ball bath (less messy than the real bath!) and Eve
mostly liked it. She was less thrilled when Lex dove in with
her :) I was thinking this afternoon how wonderful my family
is.
Eve
Fun inAll the experts say bathtime is supposed
to be a calming part of the bedtime routine… not in my
house!! In my house bathtime has become pure madness! Eve’s new
favorite game is to slide over backwards in the tub and kick
her legs like crazy, kind of like she’s swimming, only she
makes a huge, watery mess and half drowns herself (would fully
drown herself if I didn’t rescue her every time!). Lex swims
around on his belly and blows bubbles in the water, or
raspberries on Eve’s belly, or sticks his face into the corner
of the tub and makes weird sounds that probably echo in his
ears and sound neat. They both have a blast and we all end up
drenched. Then things calm down for a moment when I get Eve out
and Lex pulls the plug and puts away the toys. But the chaos
strikes up again in full force when they’re both in diapers and
cruising around. Eve likes to make a beeline for the soaked
bathroom as soon as I get dry PJs on her and Lex tries to dress
himself, which takes awhile, especially since he’s easily
distracted (especially by Eve’s cruising around!). I keep
thinking I should get pictures or a video of this, but I’m a
little scared to get the camera anywhere in the vicinity of the
soaked bathroom and if I take my eyes off Eve for even a second
she’ll probably drown herself in the tub — all in the name of
bathtime fun! Fortunately we do stories AFTER bath so everyone
calms down for that.
(Really, this is Alan posting, but Tessa
got me started with the pictures so her name is on the post.)
I know you all know, and you hear it
all the time, but this time it is literal. I started by asking
Lex to find big rocks and put them in the wheel burrow. This
was a first step in leveling out the ground where the ex-pool
pit off our deck. He was great. He probably loaded 100lb of
rocks before I distracted him by taking a shovel to a small
dirt pile. Some of the rocks must have weighted almost as much
as him. When he got to the first one too heavy to lift into the
borrow, I suggested he step up on the deck. From then on he did
and dropped them in from waist height.
When he was done “rocking” the pit, he came over to the
big dirt pile I had started working on. I was tossing shovels
full of dirt into the pit and he started doing the same with
his little plastic shovel. Since he dropped most of his dirt in
the 10 steps it took him to get to the destination, I thought
of his little wheel borrow and got that for him. Grabbed the
big one for me too since it just looked easier, and to keep
from tossing dirt in his direction while he was dumping.
After a few iterations and some light
instructions from me, he was on rails. He put a few shovels
full of dirt in his borrow (about what you see below), says,
“All full,” in his tiny high-pitched voice he uses when he
reminds himself of something, and carts it off.
He dumps it out and with the same voice says,
“back for another load!”
He didn’t even miss a beat while I stopped to
take pictures!
Between the rocks and
moving the dirt pile, he did real work for at least an hour
straight. We would have kept going if it was not for dinner
being ready. I’m sure if we would have started earlier, he
would have stayed with me until it was done.
At one point, we were both grunting a bit and I said,
“this is hard work.”
“Yeah, it is hard work. This
is hard work,” he said in a deeper, gravelly voice.
“Hard work is good,” I added.
To which he quickly responded, “Easy work is
good.”
When he’s right, he is right. Of
course, I went on to explain how hard work can be good too. How
it feels good when you can look back on it and see the job
done. Sense of accomplishment, blah blah. He seemed to be
listening well enough while we kept working, but did not seem
to be buying it entirely. I added how nice it was to have him
working with me, because hard work is so much more fun when you
have some one you like to do it with you. To that, he give me a
nice smile, said, “all full!” and carted of his load.
On a side note, I put him some where in the
1st grade on reading level now: at least half way through. Mema
would know better, so maybe she will correct this estimate in a
comment.