Adventure is out there

Ellie is pretty ecstatic about life lately.


Emphasis on the static.


She loves the trampoline. Did I ruin the illusion? Should I have let you believe her hair does that on it's own? It practically does most days.


This picture got cut off, but she just looks too happy in it not to post.


It dawned on me looking at these pictures that Ellie has a Disney doppelganger.


I had forgotten until we watched Up again with her that this little girl was also named Ellie. It's funny to me how much these Ellies are alike, hairstyles aside. Our Ellie is a non-stop talker, always wanting to go on "bentures" [adventures]. She creates adventures for her "guys" all the time, narrating their precarious falls from the couch, dangerous slides down the toy box, and arduous treks across the kitchen table during lunch. Everything is an adventure with Ellie. If we need to get her to go somewhere, we just tell her it's time to go on an adventure and she's game--the library, the bank, the rhino store (not as exciting as it sounds; it's just Costco, but she was really into rhinos for a while, so we called it the rhino store and she was all for going. Wal-Mart is the donkey store, and I forget what some of the others are, but she remembers them all . . .). Sometimes it's exciting just going over speed bumps in the parking lot with her.


Sometimes it can be a little nerve wracking to have such a little girl willing to try anything.Now it's funny to tell the story about the time she climbed all the way up to very top of toys at the indoor McDonald's playground and got stuck when she was about 20 mos. old, but at the time seeing my little baby up there, excitedly waving down, "Hi, Mommy!" was a little more terrifying. I thought we were going to have to live there.


Now we just embrace this daredevil side of her. And really, really hope she doesn't do too much of it while we're not there to catch her.
And run to grab the camera quick when we are.

Half Day

Yesterday was Charlie's half birthday.
He was pretty excited, even though he wasn't feeling great.
Goal for this month: keep him in pants that are long enough. I cannot keep up with this kid!
 
This past month he has developed a few more tricks to add to his repertoire. He now rolls over and is really working on sitting up.

 
He has also developed more of an interest in toys. He loves this Kermit puppet I picked up at a consignment sale. Ellie is kind of afraid of it unless it is across the room. (Note the long enough pants here--even too long.)



(Sidenote: Ellie got new shoes that she loves to show off. My mom got them for her while visiting Chinatown while on vacation in San Francisco. Ellie loves to wear her "China shoes" with her "Fancy Nancy" socks.)


Another new adventure for Charlie this month is solid foods. You can see how much he loves it. He really hates this. We have been taking it slow and trying lots of different things with him. Hopefully he'll get the hang of it soon. Eating has been such a challenge for him already, we don't want him to hate it altogether. It is such a triumph just getting him to finish a small container of sweet potatoes.I will have to remind myself of this when he is a teenager and eating us out of house an home. Yesterday we worked on peas. I promised him better fare for his real birthday.

 
He really seems to respond to music and spends some good guitar time with Daddy.

 
And of course Ellie has to get in on whatever Charlie is doing these days.

 
He is also getting dragged into Ellie's capers more and more now. This tub was alternately her nest and car, and she insisted on Charlie joining her.

 
You can tell he's super excited about this order of power. I love his expression here.



 Charlie's other favorite thing this month is outside. We have been spending more and more time outside as the weather has gotten to that nice in-between of not-too-wet but not unbearably hot yet.
 
Below is a little poorly edited montage of Ellie and Charlie outside. Sometimes when Ellie gets really excited her speaking is almost unintelligible. She was really excited about pushing Charlie on the swing, and I think she's saying "Charlie's smiling at Ellie." Other points not sure.
 

So that's a bit of a catch-up on the back-log of pictures I've been collecting. I'll have to get more Ellie stories and kid pictures down soon before I can't keep up. Sometimes I just want to tell them all to hold still a minute so I can catch up, but I'm lucky to even get them still enough for a picture now and then, right?

Charlie Speaks Wookiee

I know it's a big deal when any child learns to be bilingual, but can your kid help bring about lasting peace to the Galactic Empire? We're very proud. Who doesn't want their son to grow up to be Han Solo? Or at the very least, a Chewbacca impersonator. I think a person needs at least some hair for that, though.

Charlie does this a lot, sometimes when he's really happy, sometimes leading up to a big squall, or sometimes just when he doesn't want to finish eating. He'll usually do it for several minutes on end. But, boy, whip out a camera and this kid clams up. I had to hold the camera off to the side for a while, real casual like, until he forgot about it to even get this footage. "What, this camera?" I have a lot of sympathy for nature photographers. Maybe it will be easier to get footage of my kids when we're all wearing those Google glasses I keep hearing about. If people still even talk to each other by then.

And another thing--why, oh why didn't they decide to call them Google Goggles? Seems like a wasted opportunity to me.

5 months and Easter

This post has far too many pictures. I had a bit of a backlog on my camera. It probably should be two posts, but who has the time?


Anyway, as you can see, the Easter egg hunt was a success.


Capturing a photo of Ellie in all her Easter finery, less so.


She sat and played quietly while I got things ready for church. As soon as I took out the camera and suggested a picture in her pretty dress and "Fancy Nancy" bow, she remembered the bow, ripped it out and was all over the house.


She was really proud of that bow for the first few minutes of nursery. She kept touching it and pointing to it. The leaders were kind of busy with some fussy kids and didn't notice. So she went off and played with some toys. The bow was long gone halfway through nursery (I did get it back). We're working on it. This kid is not having bangs if I can help it.


This was the best I got for a pose.


The next Sunday, Charlie turned 5 months old. Love the baby cargo pants. Finally, a place for all that spare change and keys he's been lugging around.


He's really starting to look like a little boy sometimes. A bald, bald little boy.


He's also getting really good at controlling his hands and getting a hold of whatever he wants.


Ellie is always excited to see him. She really seems to genuinely like him. I think she's starting to see him as more of a person now and tries to initiate conversation with him: "Charlie, I eat pizza today!" "Charlie, I watch a show!" The other day when I was helping her hold him, she looked up at me and said, "I'm having fun!" She loves when she makes him smile and insists on holding his hand and tries to "cuddle" with him when he's in his bouncy chair. It doesn't even faze her when he gets a big handful or two of her hair. She just laughs and says, "Charlie's gettin' Ellie!" I guess that's one blessing of her late-coming hair.


Now if I can just figure out how to get this sibling affection to last into their teen years . . .


Some of Charlie's latest feats include finding his feet and pulling off his socks (upside down if you believe this picture--I don't know, I tried uploading this one twice, it just wants to be upside down).


As I said before, reaching, grabbing, and . . .


capturing. He might be getting a bit big for the mobile.


He also loves standing now. He gets the biggest kick out of being held up on his legs.


He is quick to smile and laugh and a lot of fun. He seems to be doing really well on the latest reflux medicine we have him on. He sleeps much more peacefully. Now if we could just get him to sleep longer. We're working on that too. Slow, slow, slow adjustments to his feedings and schedule seem to be his M.O. So we are getting there. Hopefully soon we will all be getting more sleep. In the mean time, at least we are having some good smiles from him.

Cousins

Last week we got to go visit with a bunch of cousins.

Ellie still talks about being "stupor" heroes with Collin. She especially liked that she got to wear "Jessie's hat."


Mostly we had fun just hanging out.


Ellie helped get ready for Aunt Kari's baby shower. Kari let Ellie keep one of the gift bags--Toy Story. It is about as big as she is. She loves it.


We got to go to Jumpin' Jacks to celebrate Collin's 3rd birthday.


Charlie came too.


Ellie was fearless, climbing on the biggest slides.


She loved riding on this little merry-go-round with Phoebe and Collin. She talks about riding on all the Bullseyes and says, "Yee-hah!" when she see this picture.


She had to learn a thing or two about sharing. Clearly Collin has already learned this lesson. He is quite the charmer for the camera.


Since we have been home, Ellie has been talking quite a bit about all these cousins. One new development, though, is that she has been having more problems with her "guys." Sometimes they fight over toys now. It's not uncommon to hear, "Hey! Hey, no! That's Jessie's ball. No, Woody. It's Jessie's!" I find myself having to mediate disputes between plastic frogs and miniature Disney characters. Jessie and Donald Ducky (the "mom" one, or bigger Donald, not the baby one) seem to fight quite a bit. The other day I actually heard the words coming out of my mouth, "Froggies, if you can't share the car we will have to put it away." They seemed to get along better after that. I'm hoping Ellie is learning a thing or two about sharing before Charlie gets bigger and wants her toys.

Charlie has been happy to be home. Both kids were pretty good on the trip, but it was rough to pull them from their routines and make them ride in a car for several hours. My grandma always says that babies are home toys. Never were truer words spoken. Here is a video of Charlie at home with his cousin Grace (12 this month). He thinks Grace is pretty funny.

Love Song

Each morning and each night I go through a ritual of pulling different medicines up into little plastic syringes to administer to Charlie throughout the day and night. As I measure out the various doses and line up the 5 mL vials, I can't help thinking of the lines from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock": "For I have known them all already, known them all;/ Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,/ I have measured out my life with coffee spoons." I feel like I am measuring out Charlie's life in teaspoons.

Yesterday, the specialist added one more medicine to try, one more half teaspoon. He thinks this really might make a difference, that things will drastically improve to the point of even being off the reflux medicine in a matter of a couple months. We left the doctor's office yesterday almost dazed. Could it really be so easy? What if it really works? What if Charlie gets feeling better and soon, to quote Eliot, in the "afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!"

I realized pretty quickly last night that this may be one of those situations where it has to get a little worse before it gets better. Once again I was up about every hour with Charlie, trying to soothe him. Sometimes I'd feed him, sometimes I'd just walk with him a bit, sometimes I'd try one of his teaspoons. With Prufrock streaming like a song stuck in my head, I'd pat his back to the rhythm, "In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo." I wondered if the lines really held the significant commentary on artistic values as I had taught young university students a few years ago, or if Eliot just liked the meter of Michelangelo's name. That certainly had some effect on Charlie.

Early this morning I tried to cradle Charlie as he squirmed and writhed in pain. He was still asleep and I knew he needed to sleep more. I also knew I wouldn't. He would alternate between the picture of sound sleep to a grimace that would turn to crying and squirming, trying to find relief. We go through this routine for a couple hours every morning. There is really nothing I can do for him, but somehow holding him keeps him from fully waking and becoming inconsolable. After a while, he settles to a whimper, then back to peaceful sleep for a stretch.

My sister once asked me how being a parent doesn't just break your heart every day. On the one hand kids will do things so sweet you just can't stand it, like Ellie refusing to say her prayers unless she can hold Charlie's hand, or Charlie's big laughs and smiles when you know he's having a hard time. On the other hand, you have to watch them go through such difficult things you can't stand it, like Ellie being in so much pain she could only eat in her sleep as a baby, or Charlie whimpering in his sleep. It really can be heartbreaking sometimes. But we are hopeful.

I am pretty sure that I will never have the magnum opus like Eliot that students and scholars praise and analyze write about. I used to want to be a writer or an academic; perhaps one day. But tonight I am preparing for another night with Charlie, lining up the teaspoons. For now, that is my love song. "Let us go then, you and I,/ When the evening is spread out against the sky."

A More Monumental Post

The last post was our family's 100th post. What a pathetic marker for that milestone. Here is a more upbeat post.

So, some positive things. For starters, Charlie now sits in a chair.


Who wouldn't be excited about that?


Charlie also turned 4 months old this week.


He is getting bigger: 16.5 lbs (that's 80th percentile).


He is quite the little charmer.


And Ellie is excited about hats lately.


I mean, really excited.


That floppy hat she is wearing is actually a hat that belonged to my dad's dad. He gave it to my older brother when he was little. Needless to say, it has seen better days. I think there are pictures of every single one of my siblings and me wearing it, and probably just about all of my nieces and nephews. Once upon a time, it was a real cowboy hat, with an actual shape and everything. My grandpa really wore it. Over the generations it has shrunk and gotten pretty battered. I'm sure there's a good metaphor to develop in there somewhere. Maybe some other time. Tonight, it's just a great picture.