Month 2

Charlie made it to his two-month mark on Sunday.


This kid is getting huge! He is the same size Ellie was at three months, only a bit longer. Ellie was in the 14th percentile for height when she was three months old. Her head was in the upper percentiles, but somehow she was just really short. (She's now 75th percentile for height, so quite proportional now, but for a while I thought she was going to grow up to be a bobblehead or a professional mascot or something.)


He is still one of Ellie's favorite playthings. She enjoys narrating to him what she is doing, or narrating to us what he is doing.


She always wants to hold his hand. The other day she crawled up on my lap while I was holding him and just sat there holding his hand. I wished I had a camera, if only for evidence about eight years from now how well they get along now.


I think sometimes Ellie gets along too well for Charlie's liking, but her intentions are good.


One of Charlie's latest developments is smiling, though never for the camera--believe me, I've tried. I do think red is his color, though.


He hates tummy time. Hates, hates, hates it. Sometimes I'll get Ellie to do it with him, but it usually doesn't help. She hated it when she was a baby too. I made all her stuffed animals do it with her, but that didn't help either.


He loves the mobile we hung over his changing table. This has revolutionized diaper changing for this kid. He coos and smiles and gets upset when we take him away from it.


His other new trick this month is learning to cram his entire fist in his mouth. It's pretty amazing. I couldn't do it, and I'd have a pretty tough time explaining it at the emergency room if I tried it and got stuck.


In other news, he's been terribly fussy in recent weeks. We've tried everything we could think of. Finally, the doctor said we needed to try some new things at his check up today. She thinks he could have trouble digesting lactose, so he's now on a soy-based formula to see if that helps him feel better. The doctor also brought up the dreaded "R" word and gave us a prescription for Prevacid in case it's reflux again. So we'll see how this week goes. At least this doctor took us seriously and cut to the chase, so no messing around if there is a problem and hopefully we'll get things figured out and settled down sooner with Charlie if it is reflux. But we're still crossing our fingers that the soy will help and that he will be fine without medicine.

Everything's Better in a Fort

This seems to be Ellie's latest life philosophy. I guess when you're a kid, life doesn't get much better than a good blanket fort. After Brady constructed Ellie's first blanket fort several months ago, she has regularly requested them. She also regularly turned everything into a fort. The fort was in the eye of the beholder. Anytime she could get her head covered with a blanket, she was in a fort. She often expected our company in these forts. For a time this past fall, it seemed that forts were the best way to calm Ellie down. Fussy on the changing table? Throw a blanket over her head and tell her she's in a fort and she would be fine for the duration. Not cooperating for bedtime? I remember more than one occasion huddling under a blanket with her while reading bedtime stories, brushing her teeth, and saying prayers together. And you know, I have to admit that sometimes things are better in a fort.

Here Ellie is in her fort at the dinner table. Not a regular occurrence, but for some reason this night we let it slide. She has affectionately dubbed the blanket she is sporting "Blanket-dear," and carries it with her everywhere around the house. A bit of a Linus syndrome going on here. The name comes from when Brady tucks her in at night. He will pull up the blanket and say, "Here, my dear, is you blanket, dear." So Ellie thinks the name of the blanket is Blanket-dear.


For Christmas her most exciting presents were a dollhouse that her "guys" can all fit in (plus some new guys) and an already built fort! Once we put the dollhouse in the little tent, we pretty much lost her for most of the day. She can spend hours entertaining herself with these two toys.


She was pretty excited about the bead necklaces she got for me. And that book she got for Charlie. We thought it would be a good idea for her to learn more about giving presents. So Brady took her to the dollar store and whatever two things she picked out were our presents from her. (I bought the present for Charlie ahead of time, though.) I got those lovely bead necklaces. Brady got a Toy Story puzzle.


Ellie's pretty into Toy Story.


And here are some pictures of Charlie in what Ellie calls "Charlie's fort," while we're on the subject. (She also thinks his car seat with a blanket draped over it is a fort and likes to poke her head in to join [read: wake] him).


Charlie has already gotten more use out of this playmat than Ellie ever did in her whole upright, refluxy infancy. He seems to enjoy it.

I wish I was better at catching my favorite moments of these two at play. Charlie is just starting to give us some fleeting smiles--way too brief for my camera to catch--and learning to play with his hands and kick. Ellie is nonstop with her toys. Sometimes she puts some of the guys in timeout for climbing on the table (even getting the mom doll to sit with them and count), but sometimes she lets them get away with it, telling them , "Bye-bye timeout," vicariously living out her consequence-free table-climbing fantasies. She has a running commentary among all these "guys" where they tell each other about everything they are doing, like climbing up the house, going outside, hiding, sleeping, etc. Some of them ring the doorbell and trick-or-treat to the current residents of the house. They tell each other to get their coats on, some of them are leaving, followed by long, drawn-out farewells: "bye, guys . . . see ya later, guys . . . bye . . . so much fun . . . 'kay, bye!" (This was also her loud refrain across the parking lot to anyone who would listen as we left church yesterday.) They return and announce their triumphant arrival: "I'm back, guys! I came back! We're home, guys . . ." It makes me wonder what we must sound like to her.

I have made vain attempts to capture these moments for posterity. Usually by the time I get my camera, Charlie is done with smiling and is on to fussing. Or Ellie has followed me out of the room. Or she has decided to suddenly become self-conscious. Or she wants to play with the camera.

So I've some up with a solution. I've decided that they should give parents the same kind of equipment they give to spies, or at least to spies in the movies. We should get pens that are really recording devices, and glasses that have a built-in high-definition camera. That way we can capture any moment in the moment without missing a beat, and the kids never even know it happened. Also, I want a shoe that secretly doubles as a phone.

A Stitch in Time

Just before Christmas we had our first child-head-wound experience. We feel truly initiated as parents now.


Ellie's carefree climbing and rough-housing has been catching up to her lately.


This resulted from going too fast, tripping, and running headlong into the hard plastic of the humidifier we've had to have in our room for Charlie. We're trying to think of a cooler story for her to tell about the scar when she gets older.


She was OK once we got the bleeding stopped, but both Brady and I had to hold her down to keep her still while the doctor worked on her. She kept saying, "Hurt the bonk!" (Ellie-speak for forehead) and, "I'm cryin'!" which the doctor thought was kind of funny. Lately Ellie has thought it pretty important to inform us when she's crying.

She's had a pretty rough-and-tumble couple of weeks. Like I said, her lifestyle seems to be catching up with her. Trying to explain her maladies to us, she will tell us she "hurt the sock" when something hurt her foot, or "hurt the pants" when she falls down. She also recently shut her finger in the door, which worried us might be another emergency run to the doctor. Thankfully not.

One night we heard her usual chatter after putting her down for bed. Suddenly, we heard cries of, "Ow! Ow! Owchie! OW!" I thought she was trying a new tactic to get out of bed, but just in case I went in to check on her.

Without turning on the lights I asked, "What's wrong, Ellie? What's 'owchie'?"

Her immediate response, "Charlie bit me!" (She wasn't referring to her toothless baby brother, I'm pretty sure, but the youtube video.) Very funny, I thought. I laughed, tucked her back in and left.

A little while later we heard the protests of pain again. Finally, about two hours after bed time, Brady went in again, light on this time. He saw a little trickle of drool tinged with blood on her sheets. Turns out she had bit the inside of her cheek really hard and it had started bleeding. Oh, man did I feel bad. I guess "Charlie bit me," is 2-year-old code for "I bit me." We finally got her calmed down and sleeping.

The next few days she would bite her cheek again in the same place, inadvertently I think, because it was swollen and would stick out. So each night while tucking Ellie in, Brady would remind Ellie, "Don't bite your cheek." It became part of the routine for a while. Once he stopped saying that, Ellie would add it on for him. He'd say, "Goodnight, sleep tight, etc. . . ." and Ellie would pipe up, "Bite you cheek, Daddy."

Just the other night I went in to check her in the middle of the night. As I was leaving, I heard a groggy, "Bitecher-cheek, Mamma." I responded, "Bite your cheek, Ellie." I wonder if that will stick. She'll be 15, leaving the house, "Love you. Bye. Bite you cheek! . . . What? Don't your parents say that to you?"

Thank goodness for the resiliency of 2-year-olds. Ellie bounces back pretty quickly and it doesn't take much to please her. Here she is ready for another adventure, "puddle-whomping" with Daddy.




And not to be left out, here are some pictures of Charlie in the new hat he got from his Aunt Jana. Adorable, if I do say so myself. Check out those cheeks!

Belated Christmas Card

I'm even late getting an electronic Christmas card out. Here are a few pictures from a Christmas photo shoot.

We finally have a picture of all four of us.


We did have to bribe Ellie to keep her still for the camera.


Kids' interest is waning.


Time's up for Charlie.


And here is a video of Ellie singing some Christmas carols for you. She was trying to get us to let her stay up later and insisted that she needed to play her drum (last year's Christmas present). The sound is a little muffled because I was worried that if I got too close with the camera, she would realize what I was doing and quit. Hope you can make out some of the words. My favorite is here "Fa-la-la" chorus.


Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!

One Month

Charlie hit his one-month mark on Thursday.


Not sure how much he weighs or how long he is since he doesn't have a check-up until two months, but he sure is growing. He's filling out his 0-3 month size clothing pretty well, with just a little room left to grow, and seems to fill up a couch cushion pretty well too.


We don't normally dress him like a convict.


He hasn't settled into a predictable routine yet, but most nights he goes right back to sleep after feedings, so we are getting okay sleep. Most nights.


Ellie is still pretty delighted with him, excited just to be in the same room with him most of the time, though she often insists on holding him and will try to pull him right onto her lap with or without our help. She also likes to give him high-fives when his hand is poking out and "pat-pat" his back (we have to burp her to occasionally too lately).


Sometimes it's hard to tell who babies look like. Charlie seems to be a pretty good mix. If anything, he reminds us of Ellie as a baby. But most of the time he just looks like Charlie. I have discovered my contribution, though. Charlie's hair frizzes after we wash it.

This is what he thought of me setting him down after his bath to try and get a picture of this.


Here is a close-up after he calmed down. You can see the frizz a little bit, though the lighting is pretty bad.


Ellie's hair does this after we wash it.


So there is a bit of me in these kids.


And here is Ellie dancing with Daddy to Nat King Cole's "A Christmas Song" before bed. We're all getting excited for Christmas around here!

Grandparents and 12 Days of Christmas

Since having kids I have decided that grandparents are the best idea ever. Ellie heartily agrees with me. And Charlie hasn't come right out and said as much, but I think he likes the idea too. He has gotten some good grandparent time in his short life so far.

My mom could put Mary Poppins to shame with all her babying skills and help.


My dad can't resist a turn to hold Charlie. One night before dinner he was holding Charlie and kind of bouncing him, trying to get him to stop fussing a bit. Ellie, who was playing under the kitchen table at the time, was watching and said, "Grandpa's dancing!" She hurried out from under the table to join in, spinning and goose-stepping. She's quite the little tag-along to her grandparents.


Brady's parents surprised us with a visit during Thanksgiving weekend. They were in the neighborhood, if you consider only a six-hour drive to be "in the neighborhood." I may be partial, but I think that a new baby Charlie is pretty hard for any grandparent to resist. It was really nice of them to make the sacrifice to come all that way to see us (well, let's be honest, Ellie and Charlie) for such a short visit.


Before they left, they gave us a fun bag of gifts to open, starting on Dec. 1. Each day for the first 12 days of the month was a fun gift to get us into the holiday spirit. The first day was a couple of advent calendars with a chocolate for each day. Ellie never fails to remind us about the "chocolate calendars."

Some of the other days included:

Some Christmas crafts to decorate. Ellie was really excited about the "pon-pons" and started ordering the sequins around like they were people ("guys, you go over here . . . c'mon guys, over here . . . on this one, guys . . .")


Cookie cutters and play dough. For some reason Ellie is convinced that the candy cane is a letter 'r.'


A Santa decoration. When Ellie first saw this, she kept introducing herself to it ("Name is Ellie, name is Ellie . . ."). Meanwhile, when we went to take her to actually sit on Santa's lap, she played mute the whole time. Go figure.


And a Santa Pez dispenser. This quickly became one of her "guys." She spent a good hour showing him the Christmas tree, making him climb the tree, ride the rocking horse ornament, etc. She was pretty excited later when we showed her that there was candy involved.


There were also ornaments, books (which Ellie loves reading at bedtime now), a plate for leaving out Santa's cookies (Ellie pretends to eat and feed me cookies from this regularly), and other fun things. We have had a lot of fun looking forward to the presents every day. Plus, there's still Ellie's favorite, the chocolate calendar. Today Ellie and I made a thank you card for all the fun presents. Just in case it doesn't arrive as the artist intended it (some of the sequins have already been pulled off by a toddler who will remain nameless--we didn't even try for pom-poms), here is a picture of it. Thanks again for all the fun!

A lot to be thankful for

I'm a little late on a Thanksgiving post here, but we've had a lot going on. We've had a lot to be thankful for this year, most especially family. We had a great holiday visiting with family, and lots of help from aunts, uncles, cousins, and especially grandparents with our two little ones. Here are some pictures my sister took of both kids on Thanksgiving day.

Charlie is nine days old here.


He sleeps for what seems like 90% of the time. It's a rather restless sleep during the day, so he wants to be held a lot, but it's still sleep. Probably just so much work for how fast he's growing.





And he has been growing so fast. You can almost just sit and watch him grow. At his two-week check-up last week, all his measurements were in the 75th percentile. The doctor explained that means that out of 100 babies, he would be bigger than 75 of them. What surprised me was that there would be 25 babies out of 100 bigger than him. He is getting so big!



I guess that means I better get on the ball and take more pictures before he completely outgrows his newborn phase.


This is his funny old man look.

Ellie basked in all the extra attention of extended family. On Thanksgiving my family was so nice to take her to the Festival of Trees. She has been pretty excited about Christmas trees ever since she got to help Grandma put one up and then decorate it. She learned from They Might Be Giants that they are conifer trees and often requests to go look at the conifer tree and turn on the lights. So a whole conference center full of conifer trees was pretty exciting.

This picture is blurry, but it really captures her excitement.


A more thoughtful analysis of the Sesame Street trees.


Working on some crafts in Santa's workshop.


Sticker art.


A treat from Santa (which apparently Ellie stopped in her tracks to eat on the spot).

(Incidentally, Ellie picked out her own clothes that day. It's the outfit I'd like to think she'd wear if she ever got to be a guest star on "The Cosby Show.")

Meeting Santa's reindeer.


And, of course, climbing Santa's workshop.


All in all, a pretty good trip. Thanks to all our family for the help and support and making it a great holiday, even while I was out of commission.