23 lbs 13 oz
32 inches
Everything looks and sounds great as far as his growth and development are.
The bad news is that both kids (yes, R had to go, too) were wheezing and got another round of oral steroids apiece along with more breathing treatments, and we had to keep them home from school today. Sigh.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
What's missing. . .
from this picture?
Yes, this is RUS's room. Where his crib would normally be, you see the toy bin that had been in his closet. Where is his crib? Disassembled and in the basement. But where is he sleeping now? In his bed.
It's pretty simple, really. I awoke to the sounds of him banging One Fish, Two Fish, Three, Four, Five Fish on his door this morning. So no more crib. Wish me luck so that I might get some sleep tonight.
Yes, this is RUS's room. Where his crib would normally be, you see the toy bin that had been in his closet. Where is his crib? Disassembled and in the basement. But where is he sleeping now? In his bed.
It's pretty simple, really. I awoke to the sounds of him banging One Fish, Two Fish, Three, Four, Five Fish on his door this morning. So no more crib. Wish me luck so that I might get some sleep tonight.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Bridal Party--Blast from the Past
It is hard to believe this picture was taken almost six years ago.ETA: No, our wedding anniversary isn't coming up (it's in June) but I was thinking about how awesomely we all coordinated given that I told people to wear whatever they wanted as long as it was a pastel color. It came out better than I could have ever engineered it.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
RUS 17-18 Months
Dear RUS,
You are learning to communicate in all kinds of amazing new ways. Since you moved up to the toddler room at day care you have had so much more interest in trying to verbalize words, although you are very much comfortable with signing and sign a lot more words than you speak. And even those words you do say aloud you tend to sign as well. Your day care teachers are picking up quickly on your signs. It's not uncommon for us to hear from them that you repeated a particular hand movement over and over and over again, and often it's a sign that you use regularly at home--bird, cat, bear, R, train, or helicopter, to name a few of your favorites.
Of these, however, your absolute favorite sign is--to no one's surprise--R's name. You look for her everywhere you go, and if she leaves the room you immediately start signing her name. You are very carefully attuned to what she is doing, to the point that we really have to be vigilant lest you try to steal what she's playing with, destroy whatever she's making, or otherwise be involved in her activity. You two have started playing together more although Daddy and I still have to be very, very vigilant!
You look up to R in a lot of ways and she clearly influences a lot of what you do. For example: you love to have headbands or bows put in your hair and sometimes even ask for them when we're playing in R's room. Here you are rocking a headband and bow just the other day!
Another thing I think you've picked up on from R is that you, too, love princesses. R has a box set of princess board books and you love them. Your favorite is Princess Perfect, the pink one, and you will specifically (and forcefully!) request this book as one of your choices when we send you to the bookshelf to find books you want to read. It's not in your bedroom, so it's not one of your bedtime favorites--at night we've been reading a lot of Time for Bed; Mama, Where Are You?, Hippos Go Berserk; Llama Llama Red Pajama; The Line Up Book; and Yankee Doodle. It's so funny to me because you are so decided about which books you want to read--I literally have to hold up the book for your approval before I can start reading it!
You're still a very cuddly little boy and you love to have one of us hold you while you rest your head on our shoulder. I cherish those moments since I know they'll pass by far too quickly.
Love,
Mama
You are learning to communicate in all kinds of amazing new ways. Since you moved up to the toddler room at day care you have had so much more interest in trying to verbalize words, although you are very much comfortable with signing and sign a lot more words than you speak. And even those words you do say aloud you tend to sign as well. Your day care teachers are picking up quickly on your signs. It's not uncommon for us to hear from them that you repeated a particular hand movement over and over and over again, and often it's a sign that you use regularly at home--bird, cat, bear, R, train, or helicopter, to name a few of your favorites.
Of these, however, your absolute favorite sign is--to no one's surprise--R's name. You look for her everywhere you go, and if she leaves the room you immediately start signing her name. You are very carefully attuned to what she is doing, to the point that we really have to be vigilant lest you try to steal what she's playing with, destroy whatever she's making, or otherwise be involved in her activity. You two have started playing together more although Daddy and I still have to be very, very vigilant!
You look up to R in a lot of ways and she clearly influences a lot of what you do. For example: you love to have headbands or bows put in your hair and sometimes even ask for them when we're playing in R's room. Here you are rocking a headband and bow just the other day!
Another thing I think you've picked up on from R is that you, too, love princesses. R has a box set of princess board books and you love them. Your favorite is Princess Perfect, the pink one, and you will specifically (and forcefully!) request this book as one of your choices when we send you to the bookshelf to find books you want to read. It's not in your bedroom, so it's not one of your bedtime favorites--at night we've been reading a lot of Time for Bed; Mama, Where Are You?, Hippos Go Berserk; Llama Llama Red Pajama; The Line Up Book; and Yankee Doodle. It's so funny to me because you are so decided about which books you want to read--I literally have to hold up the book for your approval before I can start reading it!You're still a very cuddly little boy and you love to have one of us hold you while you rest your head on our shoulder. I cherish those moments since I know they'll pass by far too quickly.
Love,
Mama
RUS's Words
Dog – “da”
Door – “doh”
Hat - "at"
Knock – “Na”
Bath – “baht”
Milk – “meh”
Mommy – “mymy”
Daddy – “Dada”
Bird - “bir”
Truck – “tuck”
Helicopter - “brrrrr”
Car – “cah”
Ball – “bah”
Lion – “yion”
Eye – “aye”
Nose – “noh”
Mouth – “ma”
More – “mo”
Banana – “Nana”
Night night – “Ny ny”
Bye bye – “Bye bye”
Hi – “Hi”
Uh oh - “Uh oh”
Mine – “my”
Stuck – “duck”
Duck – “duck”
Fireball – “Faba”
Elmo – “emmo”
Bubble -- "bubuh"
Dogwood
This is the dogwood tree right next to our driveway. I love it--it's SO BEAUTIFUL in the spring when it blooms. In fact, this entire area is stunning this time of year. Our azaleas are about to burst into bloom and I cannot wait.
R's Art Retrospective
For awhile now, I've been saving artworks of R's that I've been meaning to photograph and post on here. Only, I haven't been taking the pictures. I've just been storing them on top of a secretary dresser we have in our living room.
Of late though it was getting REALLY cluttered up there, and in my pre-Easter cleaning before Grammie and Grampy came over for Easter dinner, I decided to once and for all go ahead and get the stuff cleared off. So here are some photos of artwork R produced between January and March.
These are the valentines cards that Grampy helped R make for J and I. They came out SO GOOD!
Right around Valentine's Day, R's assistant teacher in her class at day care moved to a different classroom. A lot of us were really sad about this, so one of her classmates arranged a play date with several of the other kids from the day care class along with the assistant teacher just before she moved. At the play date the kids all painted photo frames, colored on the back of puzzle pieces taken from those cheap 25-cent puzzles you can get, and glued them to the picture frames. Her teacher then wrote "I Love You to Pieces!" on these Valentine's photos she'd taken in the classroom the week before and put them in the frames. I LOVED it, what a great crafty idea! The picture was proudly displayed on our piano for awhile but I've had to take it down and I'm honestly not sure where it's going to go now.
Now, THIS--oh man, I was so proud of R for this picture. The two photographs below represent the front and back of the same piece of paper. The first picture (the front) represents dwarves on their ponies riding up the mountain (a definite The Hobbit reference, for those not in the know. It is one of R's favorite books; J has read it to her all the way through at least three times now).
And this second photo (the back) represents the mountain and all the secret doors the dwarves build and/or find (that part was not altogether clear to me). The doors are represented by the series of Ps, Rs, and Os drawn on the paper.
This piece was drawn when R was just starting to get into drawing people and faces and I just thought it was really really good! It's a princess (of course) and a prince.
I laughed when she brought this one home from school in mid-March. It's Santa Claus and his bag of toys!
Over the winter term J taught an evening class from 6-10 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays. On those evenings R missed him terribly. So we often wrote or drew things for him to pass the time. Here she's practiced her writing--she wanted to write him a letter and this is the entirety of the letter. She then added Toy Story stickers she received in her Christmas goody bag from one of her day care classmates.
and THIS, oh this remains one of my absolute favorite things R has ever drawn. The best pictures, in my mind, are those that are accompanied by vivid stories. This one was so good I tried to write down the story as R told it to us and explained what was in it.
The photograph below is my script of R's story of the picture, but I clearly missed a lot, since I only started scripting it on the third telling or so of what the picture was of. And since it's hard to read my handwriting, here's what it says:
"The princess is in the castle (the black-haired figure with the purple dress). The princess is looking out the window. There's a prince and a babysitter (in the lower right corner of the house). The bad guy is climbing up the steps but he's in a hole. (She had drawn the bad guy and then covered him with the black hole/cloud). That's the rainbow shed (said while pointing to the top of the page). This is a door. This is an open door. This is a not-locked door and this is a locked door." (Unfortunately I wrote this down sufficiently long ago that I no longer remember where all these doors are located in the picture).
Of late though it was getting REALLY cluttered up there, and in my pre-Easter cleaning before Grammie and Grampy came over for Easter dinner, I decided to once and for all go ahead and get the stuff cleared off. So here are some photos of artwork R produced between January and March.
These are the valentines cards that Grampy helped R make for J and I. They came out SO GOOD!
Right around Valentine's Day, R's assistant teacher in her class at day care moved to a different classroom. A lot of us were really sad about this, so one of her classmates arranged a play date with several of the other kids from the day care class along with the assistant teacher just before she moved. At the play date the kids all painted photo frames, colored on the back of puzzle pieces taken from those cheap 25-cent puzzles you can get, and glued them to the picture frames. Her teacher then wrote "I Love You to Pieces!" on these Valentine's photos she'd taken in the classroom the week before and put them in the frames. I LOVED it, what a great crafty idea! The picture was proudly displayed on our piano for awhile but I've had to take it down and I'm honestly not sure where it's going to go now.
Now, THIS--oh man, I was so proud of R for this picture. The two photographs below represent the front and back of the same piece of paper. The first picture (the front) represents dwarves on their ponies riding up the mountain (a definite The Hobbit reference, for those not in the know. It is one of R's favorite books; J has read it to her all the way through at least three times now).
And this second photo (the back) represents the mountain and all the secret doors the dwarves build and/or find (that part was not altogether clear to me). The doors are represented by the series of Ps, Rs, and Os drawn on the paper.
This piece was drawn when R was just starting to get into drawing people and faces and I just thought it was really really good! It's a princess (of course) and a prince.
I laughed when she brought this one home from school in mid-March. It's Santa Claus and his bag of toys!
Over the winter term J taught an evening class from 6-10 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays. On those evenings R missed him terribly. So we often wrote or drew things for him to pass the time. Here she's practiced her writing--she wanted to write him a letter and this is the entirety of the letter. She then added Toy Story stickers she received in her Christmas goody bag from one of her day care classmates.
and THIS, oh this remains one of my absolute favorite things R has ever drawn. The best pictures, in my mind, are those that are accompanied by vivid stories. This one was so good I tried to write down the story as R told it to us and explained what was in it.
The photograph below is my script of R's story of the picture, but I clearly missed a lot, since I only started scripting it on the third telling or so of what the picture was of. And since it's hard to read my handwriting, here's what it says:"The princess is in the castle (the black-haired figure with the purple dress). The princess is looking out the window. There's a prince and a babysitter (in the lower right corner of the house). The bad guy is climbing up the steps but he's in a hole. (She had drawn the bad guy and then covered him with the black hole/cloud). That's the rainbow shed (said while pointing to the top of the page). This is a door. This is an open door. This is a not-locked door and this is a locked door." (Unfortunately I wrote this down sufficiently long ago that I no longer remember where all these doors are located in the picture).
Saturday, April 23, 2011
A Preview of Easter Dessert
R and I made this cake this afternoon and had fun decorating it after dinner! We shared fairly equally in the decorating decisions which, I think, is well-reflected in the cake's final appearance.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Typical
This is typical RUS after dinner. He just loves to put food in his hair. I can't tell you how often we send him to day care with crunchy hair because he has smeared oatmeal in it or used his hair like regular people use napkins.
But oh man, look at that smile!!! It's all R's doing, too--she's the best at getting him to laugh.
Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt
This past Saturday afternoon there was an Easter Egg hunt in the neighborhood. R and I headed down but RUS was napping (the hunt took place at 1 p.m. and he is usually down for the count by noonish).
Here she is at the start of the hunt:
And she was a little shy about picking up the eggs, but did end up with two!
Both of her eggs had chocolate in them, YUM. I couldn't stop her from eating them both right away--here she is, thrilled as punch, with one of them.
And there was a surprise appearance from the Easter Bunny!! I was so proud of R for being brave and approaching the bunny herself for a hug.
Here she is at the start of the hunt:
And she was a little shy about picking up the eggs, but did end up with two!
Both of her eggs had chocolate in them, YUM. I couldn't stop her from eating them both right away--here she is, thrilled as punch, with one of them.
And there was a surprise appearance from the Easter Bunny!! I was so proud of R for being brave and approaching the bunny herself for a hug.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Decorating for Spring
R and I made spring decorations the other day! I wanted to make flowers with tissue paper centers but R said she wanted to make butterflies. So I got all the materials for the tissue paper butterflies and then R decided she wanted to paint butterflies. I still wanted to do tissue paper butterflies, so I got those materials together and also broke out the paint for R. Here are our finished products. I think they came out pretty good, even if my photography skills are not so hot.
EDITED TO ADD: I forgot to mention that I was very impressed with R for suggesting that the pieces I cut out of the two butterfly wings filled with tissue paper could be Easter Eggs--and that she could decorate them however she liked with markers. What a great idea!
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Ninja Business
At lunch today RUS was holding his fork and moving it back and forth as if he was aiming and preparing to throw it (like a dart). Eventually he did throw it and J remarked, "What, are you a ninja?"
R then asks, "Do ninjas throw forks?"
R then asks, "Do ninjas throw forks?"
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Grandma and Grandpa Visit!
My parents came for an impromptu visit last weekend and we had an awesome time just hanging out, the six of us. In these pictures you can really see how long RUS's hair was getting before we had it cut!
Because my mom and R are kindred spirits, my parents always remember to bring yummy desserts for R. Here she is eating a bunny cookie as big as her head. I looked over after she'd been working on the cookie for awhile and said, "Wow! Did you eat that entire thing?" and R shook her head no and proceeded to hold up a crumb about the size of her fingertip.
Here's my mom with RUS, who spent practically their entire visit asking people to read him books.
My dad joined in the reading fun with the kids, too!
A rare picture of just the four of us.
The big highlight of their visit was driving down to Baltimore to see the National Aquarium. We were especially excited to do this because one of RUS's absolute favorite signs is "fish" and he has an uncanny knack for recognizing any fish that appears--whether a live fish, a drawing, part of a logo, anything--wherever we go or whatever we are looking at.
We weren't wrong, either: RUS went ballistic for all the fish. I was almost worried his hand was going to fall off because he kept signing and signing fish EVERY SINGLE TIME he saw a fish. You can imagine that that happened a lot at the aquarium. It was a really nice aquarium, too--we all enjoyed it quite a lot.
After the aquarium we walked around the Inner Harbor briefly, but it was a pretty cool day, with a brisk, cold wind blowing, so we didn't linger too long before heading to lunch at Phillip's and then home.
Because my mom and R are kindred spirits, my parents always remember to bring yummy desserts for R. Here she is eating a bunny cookie as big as her head. I looked over after she'd been working on the cookie for awhile and said, "Wow! Did you eat that entire thing?" and R shook her head no and proceeded to hold up a crumb about the size of her fingertip.
Here's my mom with RUS, who spent practically their entire visit asking people to read him books.
My dad joined in the reading fun with the kids, too!
A rare picture of just the four of us.
The big highlight of their visit was driving down to Baltimore to see the National Aquarium. We were especially excited to do this because one of RUS's absolute favorite signs is "fish" and he has an uncanny knack for recognizing any fish that appears--whether a live fish, a drawing, part of a logo, anything--wherever we go or whatever we are looking at.
We weren't wrong, either: RUS went ballistic for all the fish. I was almost worried his hand was going to fall off because he kept signing and signing fish EVERY SINGLE TIME he saw a fish. You can imagine that that happened a lot at the aquarium. It was a really nice aquarium, too--we all enjoyed it quite a lot.
After the aquarium we walked around the Inner Harbor briefly, but it was a pretty cool day, with a brisk, cold wind blowing, so we didn't linger too long before heading to lunch at Phillip's and then home.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Wrinkle, Wrinkle, Dirty Socks
R loves to sing. Loves. To. Sing.
One of her favorites is "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" which she frequently requests from us as well as sings on her own. The other day at dinner, we were talking and this song came up. Somehow, "dirty socks" got worked into the conversation--of the sort in which I exclaim, "Dirty socks! Did you just say dirty socks?!?" and R erupts into peals of laughter.
J chimes in by singing, "Wrinkle wrinkle dirty socks" and R sings along with "Put them in the washer box."
J and I immediately looked at one another with looks of amazement, and then J sang, "Hang them on the line to dry" and R said, "Put them on after dinner."
At that point R took over and said to J, "You say, 'Clean them off after dinner' and then I say, 'And squeeze grape juice on them!'"
One of her favorites is "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" which she frequently requests from us as well as sings on her own. The other day at dinner, we were talking and this song came up. Somehow, "dirty socks" got worked into the conversation--of the sort in which I exclaim, "Dirty socks! Did you just say dirty socks?!?" and R erupts into peals of laughter.
J chimes in by singing, "Wrinkle wrinkle dirty socks" and R sings along with "Put them in the washer box."
J and I immediately looked at one another with looks of amazement, and then J sang, "Hang them on the line to dry" and R said, "Put them on after dinner."
At that point R took over and said to J, "You say, 'Clean them off after dinner' and then I say, 'And squeeze grape juice on them!'"
Baby Chick Cards
R made some Easter cards for her cousins and grandparents and great-grandparents. We dipped her heel in yellow paint and used that to make baby chicks. Then we feathered grass (or drew grass, in the case of the cards we made on white paper, which I forgot to take a photograph of before sealing them in envelopes) and added black legs and eyes and orange beaks. Finally she embellished the cards with stickers and wrote names on the backs of the cards.
EDITED TO ADD: I found this project online but what I read wasn't a detailed walk-through of how to do it, complete with pictures, but instead, a general description of the project. Later, I discovered some pictures of the actual final project and realized that I understood the instructions (and the image of the final project) entirely differently than was intended!!! So, I present to you the actual baby chick footprint card (below). Isn't it totally and completely adorable? I am even contemplating doing the project again, especially because I know R will be thrilled at the opportunity.
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