Wrapping up the Easter Festivities

Things have been busier than usual around here and I have to confess-- a little embarrassedly-- that holiday festivities like dyeing Easter eggs and getting the children's Easter baskets ready (not to mention everyday things like doing laundry and washing dishes) would not have been possible over the last couple weeks if Grammie and Grampie hadn't been here to help out. Huge thanks to them both for all the help they've provided. J and I are so lucky.

Here are the last of my favorite Easter photos for your viewing enjoyment. The purple dress is R's Easter dress, a gift from Grammie and Grampie. She LOVES it. And I love that it will also make a great summery dress for her to wear. She also received a little gardening kit, complete with tiny watering can. Every day she wants to go out and water the garden, and insists that we fill up her can with the hose so she can painstakingly pour it out over the line of radish seedlings we have coming up.

Here's R opening her Easter basket from Grammie and Grampie. The hat was part of the gift, and it's been her favorite thing to wear since she got it.



I love that RUS looks like such a little man in his Easter outfit, also a gift from Grammie and Grampie. Here he is sitting next to R's Easter basket from us, which included some sidewalk chalk, "The Muppets Take Manhattan" and a plastic egg with M&Ms in it.

And, I just realized, looking through these pictures (all the ones posted in this post are from Grammie's camera): THANK GOODNESS for grandparents who remember to take pictures of the baby! I have been seriously negligent in taking pictures lately and I am thankful that I have these wonderful ones of RUS. Can you believe he is almost 6 months old already? Yikes!
I think he likes the forsythia!!

Playing Favorites, Much?

Grammie and Grampie have been in town for the last week-- there's some exciting news we hope to be able to share very soon!-- and they are heading back up to Connecticut this morning.

As Grammie was taking some things out to the car, R hollers out to her, "Bye-bye Grammie! See you later! Leave Grampie here!"

Sign Language

One thing about being a family of four and having a car that only seats five is that going places with more than one other person means taking two cars. The other day we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner with Grammie and Grampie and had to stop at a gas station on the way so both cars could get filled up.

While the cars were getting filled up, J was signing the alphabet to R, who was riding with Grammie and Grampie.

Grampie asked R what J was signing and she said, "Daddy's saying I can have a surprise."

(Surprise is the word we use to bribe her to finish dinner sometimes, and it usually means a dessert of some sort, which she doesn't get often but with Easter she's had a few opportunities to eat lately).

"It's Just Like Trick-or-Treat!"

Dyeing Eggs

After the neighborhood egg hunt and a nap and a nice dinner at a local Thai restaurant, we came home and had to get eggs ready for the Easter Bunny to hide! R had a great time dyeing the eggs and seeing them turn such bright colors--they were super-vibrant! Then she had to hide a carrot for the Easter Bunny before getting ready for bed. She was really excited for the Easter Bunny to come, especially after meeting her at the park.

Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

Our neighborhood had an Easter egg hunt, complete with Easter Bunny sighting! R had an amazing time. She and J arrived just as the kids were starting their egg hunts (RUS and I were back at the house since RUS was eating and about to fall asleep. I eventually left him with Grammie and Grampie and headed down to the park to meet up with J and R).

J said R was a little slow to get started but once she got the hang of it, she really got excited about finding the eggs!
After they found all the eggs, the kids emptied them of goodies and turned them back in. R came out of it with a bunch of peanut butter cups, bazooka gum, skittles, and tootsie rolls. She was SO excited to show off everything she got to anyone who would look-- various neighbors and people at the egg hunt, me, J, Grammie, Grampie-- everybody!
Later in the day, as she was settling down for her nap, J overheard her telling her bear all about the day. She described meeting the Easter Bunny and how she gave her a pillow (an extremely-girly pink pillow that she LOVED) and finding all the eggs and how she sat on the bunny's lap and gave her a hug.

Planting

This is our first attempt at having a real garden. We talked about it every year we lived in Texas but it never happened, and then last year we were living in a rental house.

This year, though, it had been on J's mind and he really wanted to make it happen. So during Grammie and Grampie's most recent visit the three of them bit the bullet and made a trip to Home Depot to get the materials to put together a small (4x4) box garden in the front of our house.

J spent one entire afternoon digging up the ground where the garden would go and putting together the box and filling it with soil, with some help from Grampie, of course. When he picked R up from day care that afternoon they went back to Home Depot to pick up some things to plant. R had a lot of fun choosing and they came back with some romaine seedlings and a couple of marigolds.

Here are a few shots of J and R planting radish and carrot seeds. .And, of course, RUS wanted to get in on the action by looking absolutely adorable while J and R got the seeds in!

Sitting!

RUS's sitting abilities have been improving exponentially. He is exactly 5.5 months in this picture, which demonstrates pretty much what he does when we put him to sit. He loves to grab at toys placed near his feet. Or at his feet, especially if he has socks or a sleeper with a face on the feet. He can -- not all the time, or even perfectly, mind, but he CAN! -- move from leaning forward to sitting up straighter without falling over. It doesn't take long, though, before he's shlumping to one side or the other, so you do have to be vigilant and right there to prevent him from banging his head on the floor.

I have to say, I'm pretty excited about this milestone. It will be nice to be able to put him on the floor without having to lay him down on his back!

No Cavities!

R had her 6-month check up at the dentist the other day. It was her second time going, and, according to J, who took her while I was at work, it was a little less successful than last time. She was more unwilling to let the dentist look at her teeth and J eventually had to hold her in his lap in order for the exam to proceed. She was pretty proud afterwards to show off her pearly whites as well as her new toothbrush and Going to the Dentist book!

I absolutely love these two!!

Boogie Knights

This is my new favorite book to read R. J and R picked it out at the library last Wednesday, and it's the one book I keep asking R if she wants me to read to her. She doesn't always say yes, but I can't say I don't try to get her to pick it out.

It's set in a castle with 7 knights and a bunch of monsters who join one another in a "Madcap Monster Ball." It's full of puns and interesting plays on words-- which I know R doesn't pick up on yet-- but it's really really fun to read aloud and the illustrations are interesting for her to look at.

First cereal

Last week, when my folks were in town, we tried a little bit of rice cereal for RUS in the morning. He was hungry at the time and though he didn't mind it too much, he did run out of patience and started fussing for his bottle before too long. So we waited about a week before trying again.

Last night I pulled out the rice cereal again. It was right after dinner. R, S, and I were all eating a simple cous cous dish I pulled together and RUS was watching every bite we all took, and would bring his hands to his mouth and chew while we chewed our food. He was ready.

He did spit some of the food out of his mouth - generally whenever I got the food in front of his tongue instead of on top of it, he would push it out. But then he started playing with it in his mouth before spitting it out. And then he seemed to get the idea that he could move it around with his tongue and then suck it down. This all happened in a matter of a dozen or so spoonfuls.

Tonight he was a pro. He was reaching for the spoon to pull it in, biting down on the spoon, sucking the cereal off. His first bite he made a funny face that I attributed to not warming up the milk before mixing it, but after he got used to it, he was lunging for the food every time I got it near him.

So in the end, not too much food missed his mouth. There were a couple of incidents involving the blowing of raspberries with cereal in the mouth that got Daddy in the face, but quite a bit of the food was actually eaten.

And yes, we are thanking our lucky stars that he's been such a good baby! Night time sleeping, taking the bottle, and now eating his cereal. I just won't mention the nap thing. . .

RUS 5 months

Dear RUS,

You are 5 months old, and contrary to expectations, you are not rolling yet! I don't know why I was so convinced you were going to roll early. Like your sister, you are really not that interested in rolling. It just isn't your thing. What is your thing, however, is trying to scrunch your abs, like you want to do sit-ups. You love to be propped in a sitting position, and you really enjoy looking all around at everything there is to see.

You are grabbing at toys left and right, and it's obvious that your hand-eye coordination has gotten markedly better. You're reaching out with just one hand for toys, rather than kind of fumbling with both hands. When you sit in your high chair at dinner with us, you pull on your tray with both of your hands to try and sit up straighter, and you have a blast with all the toys we put on the tray for you.

You're chewing on everything!! Your sister likes to help with this and we often have to tell her not to put things in your mouth for you.

You're wearing 6-month size clothes and we're getting some good use out of R's gender-neutral sleepers, too. Kind of nice to pull those out and already have them handy. We're going to have to break in the 9-month stuff pretty soon though--you're starting to get too long for the 6-month stuff.

You've got the cutest little chubby baby belly, and I'm so excited for warmer weather to come around so we can see it more often! You've also got some mild eczema on your legs and arms, which I'm trying to keep under control as much as possible. It's really not bad, but the rough spots just seem so uncomfortable to me.

Keep those smiles and laughs coming-- they are the best thing after a long day at work! And THANK YOU for continuing to be such a good night-time sleeper. It's the most amazing thing. I keep waiting for that bubble to pop!

Love,
Mama

Flat Stanley

Flat Stanley has been visiting us this week from Springboro, Ohio, where one of my best friends from high school lives. Her son is in the 2nd grade and needed to send his Flat Stanley to someone out of state.

Here are a few shots of Flat Stanley out and about with me today.

Almost 5 months!!!

VSD

At RUS's 4 month appointment, his pediatrician heard a heart murmur that was "a little louder than usual" so he referred us to a pediatric cardiologist to have it looked at more carefully. We had the appointment yesterday and it turns out he has a ventricular septal defect (VSD).

Essentially, this is a small hole in between the two ventricles (lower chambers) of the heart. The cardiologist did not seem particularly concerned about it, and said that the hole may close on its own, but that it would not get bigger. If anything it would stay the same size even as RUS's heart grows bigger.

Quoting from the report we received, it says, "RUS has a small, hemodynamically restrictive ventricular septal defect (VSD) but his clinical status is stable and he has been gaining weight nicely. . . . he should be treated as a normal healthy infant from cardiac standpoint."

So, good news in that it's nothing that requires treatment or intervention, although it's always a bit weird to come home with a brochure titled, "If Your Child Has A Congenital Heart Defect." We go back for a follow-up in 3 months and my guess is that they'll keep an eye on it for awhile to see what is happening with it and reevaluate if anything needs to get done later.

In other news, they weighed him at his appointment and he was 25.75" long and 16 lbs 7 oz (!!!)

Tons of Milestones Lately!

So, some RUS updates.

He is rolling! Kind of. J has seen him (once) roll from tummy to back. And he can roll from a full side position to his belly (this is actually harder than it sounds) in both directions. I am SO proud of him. He works so hard when we do floor time at these things!

We moved him to his crib, finally. This happened just last night, as we finally decided we had to officially give up on the miracle blanket since he was breaking out of it. At first it was pretty stressful since we weren't sure he would sleep on his own. But we finally got him down and asleep around 10 p.m. last night and tonight was much easier! It's kind of nice having our bedroom back as it means we don't have to tiptoe around as much when we go to bed ourselves. Now we just have to fold up the bassinet and get that stowed away in the basement again.

Children and Truck

The alphabet, in two videos

Here's R singing the alphabet song . . .


and here she is signing the alphabet (with just a little bit of prompting from me!) This video is about 2.5 minutes long.

I swear I did not teach her to do this.

In a book J was reading R today, there is a line about a rooster crowing 17 times a day, and having already crowed 6,205 times, so how long had the family been living there? (Answer: a year).

J reads this, and then starts explaining to R that 6,205 divided by 17 is 365.

He goes on to ask R if she wants to learn how to multiply 17 times 365. Of course R says yes.

So J explains: "Well, 17 times 365 equals 10 times 365 plus 7 times 365. 10 times 365 is 3,650. 7 times 300 is 2,100. 7 times 60 is 420 . . ."

At this point R cuts J off and says, "I roll my eyes now."