The Ides of March

What an ominous-sounding day. Today lived up to the infamy. We faithfully avoided soothsayers and the senate all day (probably a good idea any day) and still rotten. My back has been out all week, so wrangling two babies is both very painful and next to impossible for me. We are dealing with a toddler not coping well to the random time change this week. (You know, I can get behind a lot of Ben Franklin's ideas. Electricity. America. All great. Daylight Savings Time, though, I think is a mean trick.) Throw on top of that a freshly vaccinated 4-month-old who is having some kind of tummy trouble that the pediatrician decided was worthy of a specialist referral and you have all the makings for a pretty bleak day. Did I mention the 2-year-old's grouchiness? Epic tantrums. And it's been raining all week. Here's hoping for a happier St. Patrick's Day.

Whistle while you work, hum while you eat

This is a little quirk of Ellie's that I just had to capture.



She's been doing it ever since she started taking solid food as a baby. It's like as soon as the spoon hit her mouth, we've been re-enacting the dinner scene from What About Bob? She even does it at church when we give her crackers, mistakenly thinking it will keep her quiet. Her nursery leaders love it. You can usually hear her from any part of the house when she is in the kitchen eating, which has gotten her into trouble on more than one occasion. She has a tell when she is trying to sneak treats when Mom and Dad aren't looking. She actually hums louder when she's eating some kind of treat, she gets so focused on it, so it's even harder to hide.

Lately, though, I've noticed this unconscious habit of hers slipping now and then. She spends more time talking during meals, more time playing with her food. It makes me realize how quickly she will outgrow some of my favorite quirks of hers right now. Soon enough she will learn to say "orange," instead of "orjange." She will stop requesting "cutecumbers" with her dinner, and will stop riding the "elegator" up and down at the library. She will learn how to use pronouns correctly and no longer say, "I want to carry you me," a request that was so much more difficult to turn down after the C-section than a demanding, "pick me up!" would have been. As she is growing up, sometimes I just want to turn the camera on all the time to capture her playing, not to forget anything. If the reader will indulge me, I do want to write a bit here, as I don't have better places to keep records these days, before Ellie outgrows any more. I will reward you with a video of Charlie laughing at the end. (Or you can just skip to that, I guess.)

Lately Ellie's speech is punctuated with a sense of urgency. Lots of "have to" and "need to" phrases. "I have to go outside." "I have to go upstairs and sing a song." "I gotta play." "I need to drive the car." (Nice try, kiddo.) She has a lot of demands on her. The other day she got into closet (that doorknob has been removed and is now on a shelf in my room--interior decorating for a two-year-old is another post altogether) and was pulling out items stowed away in the 3/4s of the closet she doesn't use. As I was reloading, Ellie spotted her Christmas dress and declared, "oh, I have to wear my Santa Claus!" I told her no, she needed to wear her jammies. Before I even turned around, she was unzipped and had wriggled out down to the footies. Who am I to question her agenda?

She seems pretty comfortable sans clothes and even diaper lately. She gets pretty excited about the idea of taking a bath and gets all ready, but once it's time to get in, for some reason she refuses. No tantrum usually, just lots of excuses. "No, no. Too hot, " or "too cold." She does the same thing with food she's not interested in. I rue the day we told her the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." I keep telling her that the bath is "just right," but then she insists, "No, I have to sleep," and curls up--completely naked--on the bathmat and lets out fake snores. What follows is a parade of discovery around the bathroom, playing with the scale, climbing onto the toilet seat. The other day she grabbed her toothpaste and toothbrush and did a nice little march on top of the toilet, belting out, "Toothpaste, DAH-DAH! Toothpaste, DAH-DAH!" She's getting better about going through the bedtime routine. It takes a lot of creativity, blowing bubbles in the tub, playing "Geronimo!" with the tub toys, making her tell us stories so she will keep her mouth open while we try to brush her teeth. It can be exhausting, but pretty funny if you let yourself laugh about it instead of getting frustrated.

Ellie is enjoying playing with others more and is trying to learn about sharing and taking turns. That said, I think her best friend right now is Jessie from Toy Story. Specifically, the Jessie decal on her wall close the the crib. Jessie is her friend, admirer, and confidant. Ellie tells Jessie everything. I came to tell Ellie it was time for dinner and she climbed out of the rocking chair where she had been looking at books, ran to Jessie and said, "I have to jump down and go eat dinnertime now, Jessie." She will tell Jessie when she gets a sticker on her sticker chart, about trips to the library, or have lengthy discussions with her either when she shuts herself in her room alone or after being put to bed. Over the baby monitor I've heard her tell Jessie, "I got curly hair, Jessie." Also, "I like the trampoline, Jessie. I like it," as though having a debate about the best outdoor play equipment.

In the interest of reader interest, I will wind down now. I guess the moral is that I should keep a separate journal for myself to not lose track of all this cuteness. We sure do love trying to keep up with this little girl though.

Now, as promised, here is Charlie laughing. The video is actually a couple weeks old. Brady was trying to get Charlie calmed down late one night and Charlie seemed to really like the small mirror in the hallway. The lighting isn't great, and he makes Brady work pretty hard for the laughs, but it's a pretty good moment.



I guess I should have called this post "funny sounds my family makes."

Wintertime Fashion Blues

What do you mean it's too cold to go swimming?


"I have to go in the sprinklers." (actual quote)


I will only bought with food teporarily.


Too cold? Problem solved.


The swimsuit came about because Ellie was insisting on wearing red socks, both pairs of which she owns were dirty because she had insisted the same thing the two previous days. The suit was the compromise she and Brady came up with. She has been quite interested in suits lately because she accompanied Brady to drop his suit off at the cleaners to get ready for his upcoming job interviews (everyone say your prayers and cross your fingers for us). For a while, the hat was her "suit" and she wore it when she and Brady went to pick up his suit. When the attendant at the cleaners teased Ellie about hanging her up on the rack the spins around and riding it with all the clothes, she didn't say a word. On the way home, she was frantic, "I can't ride it!, I can't ride it! I have to go back! Oh no!" Anyway, I guess if you can't wear red socks, a suit is the next best thing. Although, maybe red socks would be lucky for Brady's interviews . . .


At least Ellie has had no strong opinions about Charlie's fashion.


Yet.

3 months

I have been meaning to get this post up all week now. Charlie hit his three-month day last week.


He has almost reached the upper limit of the weight range of his 3-6 month sized clothes already. I wonder if this growing trend is foreshadowing of his teen years.


This month he has continued to be extra smiley, gotten even more vocal than Ellie was at this age (we may never get to speak again once this one starts talking to his sister), and started to laugh for us (or maybe at us). I tried to capture a video of him laughing, but apparently video cameras aren't funny.


Things are still a bit touch-and-go with the reflux. We *think* we might finally have the right combination of medicine and feedings figured out. For this week anyway. It's such a guessing game. Nothing like reflux to make you second-guess everything you do as a parent. It says a lot about his personality that he can still be so smiley so much of the time when at other times he is clearly in a great deal of pain.


While he and Ellie look quite a bit alike, their smiles have been pretty different at this stage. Ellie would always tuck her chin and give us a coy smile that slowly spread across her face (or stick her tongue out). Charlie throws his head back and gives us big, wide-mouth grins. Sometimes he keeps smiling bigger and bigger until he can't go any farther and lets out a sort of squeal. He is a pretty happy baby. This picture isn't very high quality, but I had to throw it in.


Ellie has started to show traces of sibling rivalry here and there, wanting us to "put Charlie away in his car seat" sometimes. But usually she is still pretty enamored with him and wants to try playing with him like we do. When she sees him she will squeal, "Charlie! Charlie's so cute!"


I think he's learning to be a bit wary of her playfulness.

Happy Bawentime's Day

Ellie got really excited for Valentine's Day. We decided to host a party for the cousins who didn't get to go to school yet and have one there. Ellie is surrounded by little boy cousins and made the comment earlier in the day about "too many boys" coming. I will have to remind her of that complaint in about 12 to 14 years.

She waited to greet her guests in style. Valentine's Day is a day for getting dressed up.


Then it was time to exchange cards.




A Toy Story Valentine! How did they know?


They decorated some cards.




Then it was time for treats and a movie.


Can't beat a Charlie Brown Valentine special from the library.


Then we had a dance party to the Muppet Movie soundtrack.








With an impromptu little break for stories.




And Charlie slept through the whole thing.


We had time for a second Charlie Brown Valentine special after school let out. The kids thought it was funny for our Charlie to watch Charlie Brown.


Hope your "Bawentime's" Day was as fun as ours.

Blessing Day

Sunday was Charlie's blessing day.


He's wearing the same outfit Brady wore when he was blessed.


I think he looked quite dapper.


Ellie tried to steal the show with her curls.


She sat very patiently playing trains while we were all rushing around, trying to get ready extra early for church.


Poor kid was pretty worn out with the beginnings of a cold that day, but we dragged her through all of church and quite the family gathering later.


She was a pretty good sport.


I love this picture. It pretty well sums up their relationship. Brady is trying to teach her how to make a "scary face."


Theo whole family, with some pretty worn-out kids.


It's a good thing Mindy has a nice camera and good photography skills, or we'd never have a decent shot of the four of us. Thanks Mindy!

Snow Day, Smiles, and Reflux 2.0

Last week we had what is looking like may be our only real snowy day of the winter. Usually by the end of January I have had enough of snow. Snow is exciting in November and December. It adds to the anticipation of the holidays. I have no use for snow after Christmas. It's no longer festive. It just becomes a sad reminder of how much fun the holiday season was, and how far away spring is, and is no fun to drive in. But since we hadn't had a decent snowfall yet this winter, I was scouring the weather page every day to see if it would make it into the next week's forecast. I was hoping Ellie would get a chance to play in the snow now that she's old enough to enjoy it. And I wanted her to get the chance to try out the great snow pants I got her for only $2 that for some reason I didn't buy in a gender-neutral color so she could pass them on to Charlie. I'm learning.


Finally, we got snow. Real snow. I told Ellie the night before that it would be snowing when she woke up. She responded, "I want to go snowing!" And boy did we! We seized the opportunity and played pretty hard that morning. Ellie loved it. The snowman, the snowballs, the snow angels (which she got a little confused about--we told her to lay down in the snow and she started to go down face first).




The thing she talked the most about that night was eating the snow. "So yummy!"


I could post a ton more pictures, but I think the clips in this video best demonstrate her excitement. Pure joy.


Charlie has perked up a bit lately too. A few days ago, after finishing a particularly difficult feeding that lasted an hour and through which he screamed most of his way, I finally decided I'd had enough of watching him go through this. So I went ahead and started him on the Prevacid. I thought it might take a couple days to build up in his system, but the next feeding was already much better, only about 25 minutes and no resisting. He was like a different person. He still fusses like any 2-month-old would, he still struggles through some feedings, and he still has some pretty decent spit-up episodes now and then, but things are definitely better than they were a week ago. He isn't squirming and writhing like he used to, he doesn't wake me during the night squirming and fussing in his sleep, and he's content to be set down once in a while, which is way ahead of where Ellie was with reflux. We had really been hoping to not have to deal with the higher-maintenance lifestyle of reflux again, but this time around we feel like we are several steps ahead and can hopefully keep our heads above water this time (too many metaphors? sorry).

My favorite thing by far, though, is how much Charlie smiles now. He had started smiling a bit before, but after we got the medicine going he really turned on the charm. Maybe it was a coincidence, but I had no idea he could smile like this. It's like not having acid continually burning your esophagus would make you happy or something. His whole face lights up now with huge, open-mouth grins. It's still hard to catch a still shot of him doing it, so I took a little video for your enjoyment. He smiles at people quite frequently, but to be able to predict when he'd get a smile, I put him on the changing table under the mobile. That thing is like magic to him. Doesn't this just make your day?