Aw, It Was Nothing.

R, to J, just before diving into her ginger peanut soup for dinner: "Thank you, Daddy, for making all in the world nice and good. Thank you."

One of the Best Things About Babies is

that there's always a new first coming along.

Here's a special first we recently celebrated:

First Time in the Exersaucer.

Outgrowing

the 3-month clothes, that is. We officially packed up RUS's 3-month sleepers tonight because he couldn't quite stretch his legs out all the way in them anymore. So I had an impromptu photo session to commemorate the last one he'll wear before they are packed away.

Happy Birthday, J!

J turned 32 last month. On the 31st, to be exact. This was a pretty big year for his birthday, as he got a PlayStation 3, 2 blu-ray disks, and a PS3 game. We celebrated several times, once with Grandma and Grandpa when they visited in mid-January, with the extended family during our quick trip to CT, and with Grammie and Grampie again when they visited on his actual birthday weekend.

R made him a card.

Here we are having chocolate cake--I missed him actually blowing out his candles so you get to see a pic of him with smoking candles instead.

D is For . . .

Dog
Dalmatian
Dot
Dress made from a
Doily

"Fun" in the Snow

We have more than 20 inches of snow, and it's still coming. Latest forecast calls for snow until well into the evening, so we'll see how much we end up with. The problem with this much snow though is that R can't really play in it because it's so freaking deep. This is one of those times that I wish I was 14 years old again and had my brothers all at home to play in this with. We would have SUCH a rockin' time in all this snow.

Here's J shoveling and me and R goofing off in the snow a bit.Then we came inside and had hot chocolate.

One other update...

Awhile back I thought RUS was about to start rolling. I was wrong. I thought he was going to soon because he seemed to have so much upper-body strength in terms of pushing his chest off of the ground during tummy time. However, he doesn't really act very interested in rolling--or trying to roll. I always to kind of nudge him or pull him to get him to roll over, and while it's clear that he's getting stronger and more and more able to move himself, he isn't very interested in working really hard at it.

So, he's not rolling yet, although he HAS, a few times, done the accidental roll-back, you know, where they roll back in the direction they just came from almost immediately as soon as you get them rolled over. I'm not sure those count as being able to roll over.

State of Emergency

Well, as you can see from this weather update, things are pretty hairy around here. Nobody in Delaware--except for emergency vehicles, etc.--is allowed to be driving right now. It's snowing pretty hard but not accumulating very much. I'd say it looks as if we have maybe an inch on the ground right now, and it's been snowing since 4 p.m.

They're calling this "The Storm of the Century" and "Snowmageddon" and other sorts of things--and they're predicting anywhere between 12 to 24 inches of snow by the end of tomorrow. We'll see.

The big excitement, aside from the snow, is that J and I watched a fox frolicking in our front yard this evening after putting R to bed. It was clearly playing with a somewhat large rodent, picking it up, throwing it in the air, chasing after it when it tried to move, that kind of stuff. It was kind of weird to see a fox in our front yard. Good thing there's nobody on the roads tonight or I'd be worried about it getting run over by a car.

"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!!!!!!!!!!!!!