"I want food!"

Grammie and Grampie were visiting this weekend. During one meal, Grammie was holding RUS and pretending to pound his fists on the table while chanting, "I want food! I want food! I want food!"

At this, R snapped her head around, stared at RUS, planted her palms firmly on the table and shouted, "Your food comes out of Mommy's nipples, RUS, OK!"

On Sleep and Babies and Toddlers

This sleep thing is very strange. RUS, as I've mentioned before, sleeps through the night. By "sleep through the night," I don't mean the technical definition of "sleeps 5 hours at one stretch" but, rather, that he goes down around 9ish and doesn't wake up--that is, does not wake up at all, no feedings, nothing-- until 5, 6, 7 or 8ish the next morning.

When R was a baby, on the other hand, we got the "technical" definition of about 5 straight hours of sleep, with at least 2 wake ups per night to eat, until she was maybe 9 months old. J and I have been reminiscing quite a bit about that.

What I can't remember though is at what age we were able to lay R down for naps. Because while we have been blessed with an amazing night-time sleeper, RUS does not (and I repeat, does NOT) lay down for naps during the day. Believe me, we try to lay him down. He just wakes up the minute his head hits the bassinet. He sleeps wonderfully if you are holding him. Not so if you are not holding him.

We still have a few tricks up our sleeve to try and get him to sleep on his own during the day.

On the R front, she has been quite the hellion at night time and for naps lately. It's a struggle, when it used to be easy as pie. We're not quite sure what's going on with her--some of it is obvious stalling. But some of it is genuine upsetness, perhaps partly related to potty training: she's had a few poop accidents when she's been trying to nap.

You might also remember that she's always been an early morning riser. For the last 8 months or so she's been getting up between 4:30-5:30 in the morning. However, for the last weekish, she's been getting up closer to 6 and sometimes even after 6 a.m. It's kind of unheard of. And it threw off our day care schedule all week this week! But with a baby who sleeps in that late too, J and I have actually been able to sleep in a few times. Kind of nice!

We'll see how long this keeps up.

What R Does In the Mornings Before Day Care

Cousins!

We took a quick trip to CT last weekend to visit JW, C, and Little Frog. They moved into a new house just before Christmas so we were also pretty excited to see their new digs.

The house is gorgeous. They've been hard at work fixing it up and J and I were very impressed with everything. JW and C hosted a birthday party for J, inviting lots of the local family to come hang out with us--we got to see Grammie and Grampie as well as quite a few of J's other extended family members.

It was so wonderful to see everyone! But in the end, nothing--NOTHING--beats seeing two cousins spend all their time squealing and laughing and having more fun than you would believe running around the house together. Little Frog has some pretty awesome toys, from a little play house that they would run into and then laugh and laugh together, to a Tinkerbell tricycle, to a most excellent play kitchen. It was all kinds of awesome.
R and Little Frog were inseparable. And when they weren't together, R was asking when she would be able to play with Little Frog again. On the way home, R kept asking when she could go back to Little Frog's house, or when Little Frog was going to come to our house. Hopefully we'll get the girls together again soon!

Reading

I love taking pictures of J reading to the kids. There's just something unbearably sweet about it.
Whenever we change RUS on the changing table in his room, R runs in there with us and plays with all the baby toys in there, including a mess of board books I keep in his room. She almost always wants someone to read one or more of them to her.

Oh Susannah, Don't You Cry For Me

For I've come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee.

So, J and I bought a piano today. There was a sale locally and we got a nice deal on a used console piano that we'll set up in our living room. I am unreasonably excited about this.

Anyway, we told R and she said, "No, not a piano! I want a BANJO!"

The Latest on Potty Training

So! Since our last "going for broke" potty training update, here is what has transpired.

When we decided we were going for broke, we meant it. We actually went so far as to return an unopened package of diapers that we had in the house, which meant that there were only about 10 diapers total in the house that would fit R (other than cloth diapers we could always slap on her in dire need).

That meant we were even keeping her in underpants overnight. We did this with no real preparation or lead-up. Something just kind of snapped in us and we just gung-ho WENT FOR IT.

I mean, once you think to yourself, "what is the worst that can happen?" potty training feels a lot less daunting. For us, we figured, the worst that can happen is maybe she's not ready and really cannot tell if she has to pee or not. Or she has a bunch of accidents in which case we just keep on changing her.

J bought this large waterproof pad that we put underneath R's sheet and on top of the mattress pad, and we put her to bed in underpants figuring, if she wet the bed, she wet the bed and we'd change the sheets and just keep on going.

And, as I already wrote, she DID NOT WET THE BED.

That was almost 2 weeks ago. We haven't put a diaper on her once. There were, I want to say, 3 or 4 days of accidents. One day where she had accident after accident. We just took her pants off, took her to the potty, cleaned her up, and put fresh underpants and pants on. I had to rub some aquaphor all over her thighs one evening because she was getting awfully sore from all the accidents.

The next day there were a few more accidents. But not as many. The biggest trouble was poop for a few days after that. We kept trying to catch it before she did it in her pants. The breakthrough was about a week ago when she actually started to go, said, "Oh no! Daddy! Yucky!" and J whisked her to the potty quick as can be. She had only done a small amount in her underwear and the rest she did on the potty.

Hallelujah! Since then she has not had a poop accident.

We are not completely potty trained yet, and there have been nighttime accidents--I want to say 2 or 3 nights she's wet the bed--but mostly, that hasn't been a problem. We also went on a road trip this weekend, 5 hours each way, and no accidents. Actually, no accidents all weekend.

The next step is for us to feel comfortable not reminding her to go every hour. Right now we're still telling her, "R, it's potty time!" or "In 5 minutes, we're going to go use the potty, ok?" She throws some tantrums about this still. I think she is starting to have a good sense of when she has to go and the tantrums might be related to her really not feeling like she has to go. However, most of the time that we take her to the potty, she uses it.

One thing I think is really working for us is warning her about going to the potty before we actually take her. That is, rather than just interrupting what she's doing and saying, "Okay, time to use the potty!" we tell her that after she does X, we're going to use the potty. Or we give her a time limit--even though she doesn't really know how long 5 minutes or 10 minutes is, giving her that warning and then not making her go RIGHT THEN seems to be effective.

Now we just need to work on giving her the freedom to tell us when she has to go. We've been so intent on avoiding accidents that we haven't done that yet. I'll keep you updated--but feel free to ask how she's doing in a week or so!

(BTW, Thanks, Anon, for asking, and reminding me that I hadn't updated about this yet!)

Do Our Children Look Alike?

One of everybody's favorite baby games to play is "Who Does The Baby Look Like?" We play it often with RUS. So far, the list of RUS look-alikes includes R, Mommy, Daddy, and Grandpa.

I think the most common comment is that RUS looks like R. But, for every person who says our kids look alike comes another person who says they "just don't see it."

Do you?

RUS 2 and 3 months

Dear RUS,

As I write this, you are snoring lightly on Grandma's shoulder. You've become more and more alert and excited, sending lots of oohs and aahs and gurgly coos our way. It's great to watch you get so much more interactive. Over Christmas time, when we were visiting Grandma and Grandpa, it was amazing to watch you start laughing, a deep chortling belly laugh while staring intently at Grandma. It really was Grandma who kept you smiling most of the week we were visiting!
Your eyes have become a dark blue, and we're wondering if they'll lighten any more over the next few months. You love to try and sit up when we are holding you, and you're a champ at holding your head up during tummy time. For the most part you are a very mellow baby, and when you're fussy, it's usually not too difficult to figure out if you're hungry or tired. It's usually one of those two things-- after all, you are still a tiny little baby.

It might just be a fluke, but for almost a week, you have been sleeping about 9 hours at night. You go down between 8 and 10 and sleep usually until 4, 5, or 6 in the morning. We very much approve of this behavior! If only you could teach it to your sister!

Much love,
Mama

Our Latest Fortunes. . .

J-- nothing too exciting, just another (not so?) deep thought: "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

S-- a, "does this even make sense?" one: "The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be broken."

and then, of course, R gets this one: "Sure, you have duties, but what about your duties to yourself?"

I'm so glad her fortune reminded her to take care of her duties to herself. She really is entirely too selfless, as most 2-year-olds are. (NOT).

R 30-31 months

Dear R,

Whew. These last few months have been wild. You're changing in all kinds of new ways.

New on the horizon: increasing levels of manipulativeness. We saw some of this in action while at Grandma and Grandpa's for Christmas. You like to watch movies, and we let you see maybe 15-20 minutes of a movie in the evenings if you've been good. But at Grandma and Grandpa's the rules got relaxed a little bit and you got to see Christmas videos several times. One evening you wanted to watch more videos, so you asked Uncle Surf.

He, rightly, told you you had to ask your mom. You ran up to me and said, "Mommy, can I watch Santa Claus is Coming To Town?"

I said, "Not right now, sweetie, it's not video time." The tantrum I expected didn't materialize, though, and I was kind of patting myself on the back thinking, "she's being so good and listening to me!"

But that feeling was short-lived, as I saw you run back over to Uncle Surf and say, "I asked my mommy" and looking at him expectantly, as if you thought he would put the movie on for you. You oh-so-conveniently left off the fact that I'd said no!

Mind, he had heard the entire exchange between you and me, so he knew exactly what I had told you. And when he went on to ask you, "Well, what did your mommy say?" you turned around and asked Aunt Cali if she would put on "Santa Claus is Coming To Town" for you.

You are reaching new heights of sneakiness!

But you are also so much more expressive and communicative than ever before. Your facial expressions are wild. You can say so much with just a simple glance or pouty lip. You still love to read books and we read several every day: we read on the potty, we read in the bathtub, we read before bed, we read in the mornings before day care, we read in the afternoons when you get home from day care.

Your favorite games of imagination still center around your babies (they nap frequently!) and making cakes, cookies, and miscellaneous food items in your play kitchen. Grampie bought you some stacking blocks that you have been having a lot of fun with, too.

You are turning into a very sweet big sister although every time RUS sits in his bouncy chair, you insist on taking away his toys and replacing them with his "baby" (whatever doll or stuffed animal you've deemed "his") and insisting that he "hold" his baby.

Oh, but you'll always be my baby. I love you.

Mama

Just going for broke . . .

with potty training, that is. We've officially retired the diapers and she is even in underwear at night. Yesterday was her first night in underwear annnnnd . . . SHE DIDN'T WET THE BED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They were so realistic he probably couldn't tell

One of my favorite stories from Christmas at my parents' is this one that Surf was telling.

R received a cookie set from Santa, and one evening she pulled it out. Surf was sitting on the couch, and she handed him a cookie. He put it in his mouth and bit onto it.

At this point R grabbed it from him, wiped it off on her pants leg, and said, "No. It's pretend."

Christmas in Ohio

Whew. Christmas in Ohio was wild this year! Wild, I tell you.

It all started when we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's on the 22nd, a day before M and G and Trucker were scheduled to arrive. Only Geg was already there, so things were fairly quiet when we got there. We were so excited though because we were going to have a full house--my parents, the four of us, Geg, Surf, Cali, Little T, and M, G, and Trucker. We'd only be missing Local Hero and Local Heroine (who spent their holiday in Okinawa) as well as A, who was deployed in Guam. So there were going to be 14 people staying for a week in my parents' 3-bedroom home. My mom had spent weeks figuring out sleeping arrangements as well as a seating chart for their dining table. She had it all down to a science, complete with lists and diagrams when we arrived!

After we got there we spent some time posing for pictures. I love this one.
Grandpa played the piano with R (one of her favorite things to do at my parents' house) and she ran around breaking in all the toys that Grandma has hidden in various nooks and crannies. And, of course, R loved watching Grandpa run the trains while wearing the engineer hat. (My brothers and I absolutely loved those hats when we were kids. There is something about wearing an engineer hat while watching model trains that is absolutely magical.)
On the morning of the 23rd, we got up bright and early to head to the West Side Market and stock up on tons and tons of food. My mom started cooking a huge ham (so that we'd have leftovers aplenty to feed everyone over the next week!)

While M and the boys were supposed to get in sometime on the 23rd, M called and said, unfortunately, she and the boys were going to come on the 24th instead because G had a fever. We were all disappointed to have to wait longer to see them, but we also understood.

Then she called on the morning of the 24th and said they were taking him to urgent care just to rule out strep. As it was, they weren't planning to arrive until dinner time.

Surf, Cali, and Little T's plane was getting in at 4:30 p.m., so we were all psyched up for a huge family reunion for Christmas Eve. Presents were wrapped and showing up under the tree.

Surf, Cali, and Little T finally got in. We had the kids in their Christmas finest. Check out Little T and RUS below.
My mom gets out all the Christmas Eve foods-- an antipasto plate, chips and guacamole, a vegetable tray with an amazing veggie dip, a fruit tray with fruit dip, and other miscellaneous hors d'oeuvres. We're all milling around talking, watching the kids, anticipating M's arrival. Then we get a phone call, and as it turns out, A is on his way to join us for Christmas. We were shocked. But, there were the usual hijinks with his flight and other flights and, well, long story short, his plane wasn't getting in to Dayton until midnight. So he and M and the kids were going to be driving up and getting in really late. (This was, of course, after M and the kids had already been at the airport since 6 p.m.-- poor M!)

We then postponed our usual Christmas Eve family gift exchange until the morning, since it became clear that none of us were going to be able to just stay up and wait for them to arrive.

Oh, and of course, it wouldn't be Christmas Eve without my dad playing German music on the accordion.
So... Christmas Morning was Insane.

We tried to do the gift exchange, and we kind of did, but with five children under the age of three (for those keeping score at home, G was almost 3, R was 2 1/2, Little T was 16 months, Trucker was 11 months, and RUS was 2.5 months old) underfoot, there was no way that any kind of order could be imposed on the proceedings. We usually take turns opening gifts, going from youngest to oldest, and we really get into watching and talking about what everyone gets. Not so much this time. Plus, the kids all needed to eat at different times.

R is the earliest riser, so she gets up at the crack of dawn and eats right away with my parents. So she was okay because she'd already had something like ten bowls of cereal by 7 a.m. but the other kids--Trucker and Little T in particular--really needed to be fed so M and Cali were busy feeding them while others were opening gifts. Then when they sat down, we had to start passing out gifts because otherwise G and R were going to burst from anticipation. They'd already opened their stockings, but they couldn't wait to start opening other gifts.

The gifts got passed out and we just opened them pell-mell. G and R did the whole "first gift that I open is the gift I want to play with immediately and to heck with everything else!" For R that gift was a pink mixer. Perfect for mixing up cookie dough-- her favorite. For G, it was a set of walkie talkies. This was his favorite gift until he opened up a Polar Express remote controlled train set. So. Awesome.

The absolute surprise hit of the Christmas season, however, was a jack-in-the-box that Trucker received. R could not stop playing with it, and the other kids all took turns playing with it. I could not believe how much they all got into it. I mean, seriously? But, yeah. Seriously.

Anyway, for the purposes of this blog post, suffice it to say, after this point, J and I got really really bad at taking pictures. Mostly because we were always so busy with everything going on. Our entire week at my parents' house was packed. So I don't really have much photographic evidence of most of the week.

The day after Christmas we got to spend some time with my grandmother and aunt and uncle and cousins in Wooster, which was awesome. R, Little T, and G spent half their time there jumping out of a stool and pretending to be a jack-in-the-box. Hilarious.

The rest of the week is kind of a blur. My parents' living room looked like a toy store had vomited into it for the rest of the time we were there. R had the time of her life with Grandma and Grandpa, and one of her favorite things -- among many favorites! -- was watching Christmas videos ("Santa Claus is Coming To Town" as well as a compendium of Christmas songs from classic children's TV specials).

As for RUS, his first Christmas was spent laughing and hanging out with Grandma. She could make him laugh and smile like nobody else. He got bunches and bunches of clothes-- thank goodness, since J and I don't have a lot of clothes we can hand-down from R!-- and some great new teething and rattling toys.

Christmas in Delaware

After going to CT, we were back home for a little more than a week before we planned to drive out to Ohio and see my side of the family. We planned our at-home Christmas for just before we left for Ohio, and Santa made a special early trip to our house to drop off our gifts before we left. Here's what he left for R and RUS!

Here's R waking up in the morning and seeing her gifts for the first time. She still wasn't 100% sure what to expect about Christmas even though we'd been talking about both the Bible story and Jesus's birthday as well as the traditions we always do-- like decorating the Christmas tree and singing carols and baking cookies and exchanging gifts.R seemed to like just about everything she got. Here she is pulling things out of her stocking!
Obviously, the play kitchen was her big gift. She also got Candy Land, a LeapFrog Tag reader and a few books to go with it, and some play cookies for the kitchen. And there were the requisite socks, clothing, and other practical items thrown in there.

You can see her new cookies in the play kitchen picture below.
P.S. Oops, no pictures of RUS from his first Delaware Christmas! He slept through the entire thing, and I was holding him while wearing ratty old sweatpants and a t-shirt, so we just didn't think to take some photos! R was more than happy to help him open his gifts!!

She's Growing Up...Way Too Fast!

A conversation at breakfast this morning:

R: I like to read books. With my mommy.

S: You like to read books with your mommy?

R: When I was a little girl, I like to read books with my mommy.

S: Aren't you still a little girl? Don't you still like to read books with your mommy?

R: No! I'm a BIG girl!

What's RUS Wearing?

R, looking at this picture of RUS and J: "What's RUS wearing?"

J, to R: "What is RUS wearing?"

R: "Appawa!"

J and S: "What?"

R: "Appawa!"

J and S, looking at each other: "What is she saying?"

S, to R: "What is that??"

R: "From fa la la la la!"

J and S: "Ohhhhh, apparel!!" (You know--"Don we now our gay apparel")

J: "Her vocabulary is clearly more advanced than ours!"

Potty Training Update: Cool Toys

So Potty Training is only going "okay." Some days are better than others. We're trying the "routine potty interventions throughout the day" so that she gets in the habit of using the potty before and after meals and before and after naps/baths/bedtime. Most of the time she resists our "It's potty time!" exclamations, saying, "No! It's NOT potty time!" but other times she goes along with it just fine. She does sometimes say she needs to use the potty, but this still occurs mostly as a stalling tactic to avoid having to lay down for a nap or for bed.

I was inspired to give this update because of this post on DNA's Digital Diary. R does this too when she needs to wipe after peeing. She pulls on the roll of toilet paper until one of us grabs it to prevent her from unrolling the whole thing. I'm just glad she hasn't taken it as far as walking into another room with it, ha-ha!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2010 everyone! Feels weird to be starting a new decade. I can't decide how I want to pronounce it-- I've been saying two-thousand-ten but that seems longer than twenty-ten. But twenty-ten just doesn't sound right. How are you doing it?

Anyway, the 4 of us had a fairly uneventful New Year's Eve. We continued my family's hallowed tradition of having appetizers for dinner on New Year's Eve. Our menu consisted of

Soy buffalo wings
Vegetable Gyoza and Vegetable Tempura from Trader Joe's
Leftover Chinese food from the night before

and, my family's Christmas Tea Punch, which is a must-have at every significant holiday event between decorating the Christmas tree and New Year's Day.

Our neighbor across the street gave us a bottle of sparkling apple cider, and we were all excited because we were going to open it and have it to toast with. Unfortunately, we totally forgot. And went to bed at 9:30. Geesh.

But Grammie and Grampie showed up on New Year's Day to show us how to really celebrate. We made hats out of lace doilies (each person has a different number on their hat) and Grampie had bought 5 2010 glasses for us to wear. (Hey, it was for charity.)

Christmas in Connecticut

Once again, we celebrated Christmas three times. First with Grammie and Grampie at their house in CT in mid-December. Then, a family Christmas just the 4 of us in DE. Then we traveled to OH for a week to celebrate with Grandma and Grandpa and the extended family.

Here we are in CT!
R loved her gifts from Grammie and Grampie, especially this excellent stacking block set and her customizable monster puppet, which is pure awesomeness and so much fun! Everyone took a turn making a monster (all the different parts--eyes, noses, mouths, arms, facial hairs--fit on the main body with velcro. It totally rocks!)Over the weekend we were there, R also had a lot of fun playing in the snow with Grampie. We arrived just in time for all the roads to be cleared off but snow to still be on the ground. She's really gotten a kick out of snowman-making this year, and "Frosty the Snowman" was clearly the favorite holiday song, competing with "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (yes, she memorized all 12 things) and "Jingle Bells."
The only bummer about the weekend was that both R and RUS were sick with colds-- bad enough that RUS was throwing up from all the phlegm he had in his throat. It also meant we didn't drive up to see the extended CT family because we didn't want to risk any other illness when they were both clearly under the weather already.

Two Towers

After making these two towers, R announced that one was RUS and one was R. Can you guess which is which?

RUS weeks 7-10