Fighting over the vacuum, and other summer fun

This morning Kate was up early. We spent a little time reading her new Kids' World Atlas. She was obsessed with the komodo dragon. She asked me where it lived, and I told her: Indonesia. "Donesia?" she asked. "IN-do-ne-sia," I enunciated. "Donesia," she said, confident that she finally had it right.

She LOVES to read. She can read quite a few words, although she gets easily frustrated when we try to prod her along with what she doesn't already know.

Fun with the mister today.

Pouring water on her little brother's head, like any good big sister would do.

Learning how to get what he wants.

"I want to vacuum." "NO, I want to vacuum!" [can you hear my contented sigh from where you are?]

Baa, baa black sheep

Say these few words and Claire's face will light up like it's Christmas. She will immediately start saying 'baa baa' with you, and look at you with wide eyes and a smile as you sing the song. When you get to the 'yes sir' part, she will nod emphatically, her head tilting way back and way down in an exaggerated motion, and she'll say 'essss'. I'm not sure why she loves this song, but it is by far her favorite song in the whole world.

Kate is starting to 'read' books. I guess we don't have that many in our collection, and she has heard them enough times to repeat them back to us. The other night, she 'read' Brown Bear, Brown Bear to her sister. Adorable.

Maybe it's the whole milk? The week before her birthday, Claire started talking. She says 'puppy', 'bunny', 'mommy', 'daddy', 'aaaah duhh' (all done), 'baby', 'baa' (ball, and of course the intro to the aforementioned song), 'ducky' and 'bye-bye'. She also started walking on her birthday.

We Netflixed Happy Feet, and Kate thinks it's pretty funny. I think it's pretty preachy. Both girls love to dance to the music. Kate also finds Looney Tunes to be hysterical.

Claire had her 12mo well-baby check last week, and is now 21lbs 5oz, and 30 3/4" tall. She also has 6 teeth (4 on top and 2 on the bottom) and her lower left canine is coming through.

When we were on the airplane, Tim drew Kate pictures of what we were doing, to entertain her and to take notes for us. Her notebook is full of cute cartoon drawings of our trip. It was also a good way for me to remember some fun moments:

• Kate running and running and running around the airport, in an attempt by us to wear her out. It sort of worked.
• I think she was afraid of the moving sidewalk at first, but then she loved it. She especially liked being faster than me, as I pushed Claire in her stroller and walked on a non-moving portion of flooring.
• During our connection in Houston, she looked out the window at a 747 and said, "Get on other airplane?" She likes them, apparently. She also said, "We go to airport every day?", and "We take seatbelt off now?" in hopes of getting out of her seat and causing a ruckus.
• We started to wonder if we should be worried about one of our airplane rides, as Kate studied the EP card for about 10 minutes.
• We got in trouble from one of the unpleasant flight attendants who didn't appreciate us changing Claire's diaper on our seat right before take-off. Tim had checked, though, and could not find a changing table in the tiny room that passed for a lavatory.

I am glad I didn't have to take the girls alone on that trip - I do not know how I would have done it. They did pretty well, but when one acted up, the other joined in, and I would have been pulling my hair out after the first leg. I would also like to say 'thank you' to all who tried to entertain Claire by playing peek-a-boo with her. She loved it, and it was a great distraction. I hope I can be as helpful to other parents someday.

SO big

Who's the princess?

I almost forgot to post the results of Kate's 2-year well-baby visit. I guess they probably call them pediatrician visits now. Anyway, the measuring tape confirmed my suspicions: Kate is really Really tall.


height: 37" (off the chart for her age, again)
weight: 31 pounds (92nd percentile)

Claire also got weighed and measured (8mo):

height: 27" (64th percentile)
weight: 18 pounds 14 ounces (70th percentile)

I Never Thought it Would Happen

Kate hardly cried at all during swim lessons this morning. She started out whimpering a bit, but then gave up on it and just started talking and swimming. I'm still in shock. All weekend she wanted to show off to Grampa and Aunt Jessica in the pool, and I guess now that is carrying over into lessons. We'll see how tomorrow goes. This is week 5, and next week is her last week of lessons. By now she can swim a little on her stomach while looking for the edge of the pool or a step, flip onto her back so she can breathe, and then flip over onto her stomach again so she can propel herself to the side.

So tired after playing with Daddy.

McLaren is dissatisfied with the meals around here. For instance, I just got done feeding her. This meal consisted of milk and then a course of oatmeal and rice mixed together, with some apple juice stirred in for sweetness and flavor. I'm pretty sure more of it ended up on her than in her. She hasn't gotten to the point where she can grab the spoon yet, but she spits the food out and then smears it all over her face with her hands. She is still falling for the whole Mommy's eating the cereal, so you should eat the cereal charade, but I don't think that will last long. It probably didn't help that as I was feeding her the oatmeal, I was enjoying the last piece of All American Chocolate Cake from Costco. I swear that kid can make me feel more guilty than a cat in a birdcage. She just sits there in her big highchair, watching me take bites of chocolate cake, sighing once in awhile for effect. Her big eyes follow the fork, back and forth, plate mouth plate mouth. Where's my cake, Mom?


Not that she's hurting for food, mind you.

Ankle, what ankle?

He's Back!

Tim arrived safe and on time on Friday afternoon. The girls and I headed to the squadron to pick him up from his vacation (Vegas + No Kids = Vacation), and Kate greeted him somewhat coolly. She wasn't all that sure about this guy getting in the car, but she warmed up to him after not too long. Lots of playing and running around being chased by him helped. Most of yesterday was spent in the pool or playing 3-card monte, a game Kate really enjoys. Tim puts a ball under one of three pails and moves them all around and then she tries to guess where the ball is. She's getting better, but still hasn't mastered the fact that when a ball goes under the blue pail, it isn't going to show up under the white one. We'll keep at it.

McLaren has been practicing her coughing. Her favorite time of day to do this is at approximately 5:52am. Lucky for her it's a cute cough, and it's her newest way of talking to us, so we don't mind so much.

I Think I Know What the Problem Is

Teeth. I can just now see one of Kate's lower eye teeth coming in. I imagine that is what is causing so much grief around here. I hope so, at least, 'cause mama can't take much more of this!


I think we are having a breakthrough on swim lessons, though. Yesterday afternoon we swam and Kate didn't want to get out of the water again. But she also kept wanting to come to me (I'm the evil one who makes her swim to the step, so she usually doesn't want anything to do with me). I believe she might be getting more confident in the water and is now wanting to show me how well she can swim. Also, she didn't cry at lessons this morning until she actually got into the water. This is a big improvement over last week when she would start crying as soon as she saw the house from her car seat.

As for me, I'm still working on the sleep thing. The cat is hereby evicted from sleeping in the house at night. He woke me up at 2am, wanting to go outside. After I had let him out, I noticed that it seemed rather warm inside, so I turned on the swamp cooler (it was 75 and stuffy) and headed back to bed. Probably around 4am I started having dreams about how chilly it was and that I hoped the babies were warm enough. I didn't wake up from these dreams until 5am when I noticed it was freezing (65). So, up again to turn off the cooler and cover up McLaren. Kate was on her own; I know better than to go into her room when she's sleeping. There is a very good chance she will wake up and if she does, well there's no going back to sleep for awhile. After all that, the girls did sleep in until 7am, so that was a nice bonus. Just a few more days until the weekend and Tim will be home to tend to early-rising children! Woohoo!


Okay, time for a quiz. Who is who?

Firsts

Overheard yesterday at the mall: "Okay, Kate, you get to be WSO."


We went mattress shopping yesterday at the mall with the girls and decided to try something new: we put Kate in the back part of the stroller (the Weapons Systems Officer's position, as Tim refers to it as) and sat McLaren up in the front seat. Why I ever thought I could live without a double stroller, I will never know. Anyway, that is neither here nor there. I think McLaren enjoyed sitting up and having a view of things, although I'm not sure how much she enjoyed having her sister kick the back of her seat incessantly and pull her hair. We ultimately ended up with Kate in the front and McLaren reclined in the back so she could take her nap.



After we got back from the mall, McLaren got to try her first solid food, rice cereal. She didn't care for it very much.

First rice cereal, 4mo.

Then, after a late nap, we packed up and headed to Reese's house for her 2nd birthday.

Megan, Reese & Carly, blowing out the candles.

Mmm, cake.

Right now, Kate is very into hot dogs. She particularly enjoys the 'rib-eye' version, the sausage version and the roast beef version. She knows she likes meat, and now associates all of it with hot dogs.

Oh, and before I forget, I have new stats on the kids (for weight, at least):

Kate (20mo): 29.6 lbs

McLaren (4mo): 15.8 lbs

My babies are chubsy.

Too Busy for More Than Photos

Kate's in swimming lessons, everyday for the next 5 weeks. We're almost done with week one. She is doing a great job, and is already learning to roll over onto her back and float. She hates the lessons, but is becoming a good swimmer.

McLaren will be 4 months this weekend. I can't believe she's already so big. She is rolling from side to side (not rolling over yet - I think she's too chubsy for that to happen for awhile), doesn't care much for tummy time, and is eyeing my oatmeal every morning. We may be trying rice cereal this weekend. She is also teething, I think. She tries to shove her whole hand into her mouth any chance she gets, and likes to bite on the teething rings we have for her. She's also now enjoying her exersaucer, which is a great way for her to be upright and more involved in the family.

Trying to shove the whole skwish into her mouth.

So Much Fun

If you can't find us over the summer months at home, we're probably here:

Kate enjoys the misters.

Peeking out from behind a water gun.

Getting very wet.

We went to Brandi Fenton Memorial Park today along with several other moms and kids. Kate was apprehensive at first, but after I started splashing around, she did too, and she had a great time. We got to leave McLaren at home with Tim since he's on nights, so it was just Kate and me. She loved it! We'll be spending a lot of time there in the next few months, I hope.

Claire is starting to laugh now. She has this silly 'ha ha ha' rapid/forced laugh that's really hammy and funny. I hope she'll keep it up long enough so that I can get a video of her doing it, but so far I think I'm the only one who has heard her. She is growing up fast and is sleeping so well now. I can put her down around 7-7:30pm and she won't wake up until 7:30-8am. And she is taking great naps, which allow me time to spend with Kate. Claire also has this fun eyebrow thing going; she is definitely related to my side of the family, as she can already raise one eyebrow and does so often. She looks like she is skeptical of everything.

Kate is doing great, too. She's so funny, laughing when she's pulling Starbuck's string for him to chase her, and playing peek-a-BOO at the dinner table. She wants to be just like me; she puts her cell phone and wallet in her purse, and walks around the house occasionally opening her phone to say "uh-huh" and "bye-bye" and then closing it again, with purpose. We're trying to teach her earmuffs ("Max, can you earmuff for me?" Beanie, Old School) because she's learning new words pretty quickly and I fully expect her to repeat something her father (never me) has said in her presence, and it will probably happen at a very inopportune time, like at church. Anyway.

Whoa!

This is Kate's latest favorite expression. That, and 'more' everything. "More binky." "More airplane." More more more. It doesn't mean that she wants more of these things, she just likes to say 'more'. And now she also likes to add 'whoa!' to the mix. It's very cute. She is also beginning to understand counting, and counts her blocks (usually she only makes it to 2, but hey). We got her a Dora potty chair a few weeks ago, and she is wanting to sit on it more and more. I can't believe we might be at the potty training stage already.

McLaren has a touch of the stomach virus that is going around. She has been sleeping like a champ, trying to get over it, but is waking up a bunch at night wanting comfort. She's a happy baby, though, and is smiling through the vomit and upset tummy. Me, I'm trying to smile through the vomit. It's difficult.

I was supposed to talk about Easter in the last post, but was too tired and went to bed instead. Easter was fun; we took the girls to church, which is always challenging since we take them to the service with us instead of putting them in the nursery. I think church should be a family affair, which is why we like to take them in with us, but man is it hard to keep a toddler still for an hour or however long the service is. How do y'all do it? Nursery? Toys in the pew? Please share your secrets.

Ready for church.

We went to a different church for Easter service, mostly because we were running late (as usual) and this other church is closer to us. Holy cow. I have never seen so much livestock in a church before. Instead of a regular service, they put on a near-Broadway-like production of the Easter story. It was really cool, with singing, live horses and sheep, and a Jesus with a southern drawl. The only problem was that the lights went out and suddenly we were in a theater. With a toddler and a baby. And the toddler didn't want to sit still, even when the puppy (horse) with a Roman riding it trotted down the aisle next to us. "More puppy! More puppy!" This was not, of course, a quiet request by said toddler. I did mention everything is 'more', didn't I? So about an hour into it, Tim gave up on trying to get Kate to keep coloring on the church service guide with the pew pencil and took her out of the auditorium. I stayed on with Claire, since she was sleeping fairly soundly. A half hour later, after many glances at my watch and wracking my brain trying to remember when the next service was supposed to start, I left with Claire to go find Tim. I wish we could have seen all of it, and that we knew what it was we were going to be doing at the service, for we would have put the kids in the nursery and enjoyed the show. Next year.

The rest of the week was spent shoveling rock and raking the yard. We are almost done with the rock we have, but will probably have to order more, as I was not spot on when I estimated the size of our yard. Way to go, Jen.

Kate and I colored Easter eggs on Thursday (hey, she had no idea Easter had passed, and we were kinda busy last week). Kate enjoyed it for a short time. I imagine next year she'll be more into it. I have video of her coloring a purple egg, but I cannot get Google video to work for me at the moment.

More spoon.

Red hand, yellow hand, red dots on face.

Off the Chart

It's well-baby visit time again. Kate had her 18mo well-baby check and McLaren had her 2mo well-baby check today. Kate, at 18mo, is off the chart when it comes to height. She is 34 3/4" tall, the height of your average 27mo old girl. I thought she seemed tall. She hasn't gained much weight in the past couple of months, and now weighs 27 1/2 pounds. She's still got her chubsy thighs, although I suspect she's growing out of them quickly.

McLaren is also a healthy eater, and weighs 12 pounds 6 ounces and is 23 1/4" tall.

Today was also shot day, and it did not go over well. Both girls are still mad at me, I think. Stickers helped a little, but in the end Kate just ate hers, and Claire had no idea what she was supposed to do with a Blue's Clues sticker.

Congratulations to Carrie & James and the kids on the newest member of the family: Isaac Jerald! He was born this morning at 11am sharp. We can't wait to see photos, you guys!

Dare I Say It?

I'll whisper, so as not to jinx myself: woohoo! Claire has skipped her 1am feeding 2 nights in a row, and is sleeping from 10pm-4am straight. Me, not so much, as I'm still stuck in the rut of waking up at that time out of habit. But I'll get there. For now I just look at the clock, listen to the silence, and smile as I roll over to go back to sleep.

It has taken this child much longer to skip this feeding. Kate dropped her 1am meal on her own. I remember, because we were in Vegas and one night she just slept through till 4am. I was amazed, since she was just 8 weeks and we weren't even at home. I thought kids were supposed to freak out and be up at all hours when you were on vacation.

Claire has been more difficult, surprisingly. She is now 9 weeks old and is just finally sleeping 6 hours straight at night. I imagine all the craziness here and there has caused some disruption in her life, which of course makes her want to eat. In any case, I'm just glad she is sleeping that long at a time and I can't wait until I get out of the habit of waking up at 1am so that I, too, can get 6 hours of sleep in a row.

Kate is having fun playing with playdough now. I didn't think she was old enough, but she got to try it out when I visited my friend Rae last week, and she had a blast. Today we made yellow playdough, and it's so much nicer than the stuff you buy. Kate knows it tastes horrible, but can't help herself. It's like a compulsion: she'll mush it into a 'shape' and then try to eat it. Then she'll make an outrageous face and look at me like, why didn't you try to stop me, Mama? This is icky. Very cute.

Big smile, 8 weeks.

Yawn. 9 weeks.

Sharing breakfast with Daddy, 18mo.

Come On, Vamanos!

Nap hair and summer teeth.

Everybody, let's go! Aaah, Dora. She makes me crazy. Rather, her songs do, but Kate loves her Dora the Explorer. Her face lights up when Map or Boots shows up on the TV screen. She dances to the silly songs that get stuck in my head for days. Her little head bobs back and forth as she smiles, watching Map tell Dora how to get to the high tower.

Is it just me, or does Map sound like that gay actor with the bad teeth? I for the life of me cannot think of his name, or I would have told you who I was talking about. Anyway. Map totally does. Nasal, with an east-coast accent. Odd for a children's cartoon, no?

And does anyone else have this compulsion to root for Swiper the Fox to steal whatever it is that Dora and Boots are holding? Maybe it's just me.

So I survived the scorpion incident. I was lucky; by 36 hours my foot was almost completely back to normal. Now, of course, I'm more freaky about them than ever. Anyone who knows me, I think, knows how obsessed I was with them before this sting. Maybe it was just Tim who knew. I don't know. But now I'm positively OCD about the whole thing. I've got glue traps in the bathroom, in the hall, and I need to call the Orkin guy to bring more out. I've stuck one of those Sylvania sticky LCD lights on the bathroom door so I can light the hallway at night. And every time I get up in the middle of the night, I diligently shake out each slipper before putting it on my foot. If it were convenient, I would make Kate wear shoes in the house at all times. If I knew of some place that sold full-body armor for children (and socks for adults), I'd buy them and make us all wear them. When I'm not wearing shoes, I'm always watching where I step. Paranoid? Yes. Damn scorpions.

McLaren is now 2 months old. I can't believe it. She's just under 12.5 pounds, and is almost sleeping from 10pm till 4am straight. One or 2 more nights of getting up to give her a binky at about 2am, I hope. She's getting pretty good at falling asleep on her own, and does so for most of her naps. She knows where she is and what to expect in some cases here at home; for instance, she knows the mobile over her crib and knows when we put her in there that it means we'll leave and want her to sleep. She knows the mobile over her changing table and knows it means a new diaper. Hence, more crying in the crib than on the changing table. Smart kid, this one. My favorite thing is when you put her down for a nap in her crib and turn the mobile on: often she'll eye it suspiciously out of the corner of one eye, intently watching one of the arms go round and round. The look on her face is priceless.

Kate is 18 months, and is teething (?) again. She has been grumpy, whiny and generally crabby for the past several days. She spent 2 hours at the CDC (daycare) today and cried almost the whole time. Joy. But she's getting smarter every day. Last week she said, "One, two, three" pretty clearly. She can say many letters of the alphabet when you read her ABCs book to her, and she is trying to say her name. She loves dolls, and always wants to burp them, give them a binky or feed them a bottle. I can't imagine where she got those ideas. I think she loves being a big sister, but is struggling sometimes with the diminished attention she gets due to her baby sister being around. Claire, on the other hand, stares wide-eyed at her big sister, and it's so fun to watch them interact.

Tantrum.

2 months.

2 months.

So True, So True

I get these weekly emails from Babycenter about Kate's milestones, and what to expect each week of pregnancy. This week, I opened the email about Kate and read the following:

Doing errands around town is harder than ever with a pint-sized explorer in tow. Being strapped down in a car seat or stroller is the last place your toddler wants to be: Expect an earful — usually accompanied by an arched back and flailing arms and legs — when it's time to buckle up.

Ha! So true! That arched back, the 'outside voice' screaming in protest at the horror of being chained into a stroller. The glare I get for putting her in there. Now, just add an 8 1/2 month pregnant belly and the crabbiness that comes with it to the mix, and you get some fun shoppers!

Kate had her 15mo well-baby check this morning, and is doing just fine, despite my concerns that she had lost a lot of weight during last week's illness. Nope. She gained weight over the past month (she's now 24lb 14oz). Must be the Christmas cookies. She had her first lollipop this morning after her shots; I felt bad for the screaming child and let the nurse give her one. Wow, did she love that. I think I'm going to have to wash the stroller seat cover now, it's so covered in sugary goo, but she was sooo happy until I took it away from her.

As for us, the house is a disaster (dis-as-ter, no kidding). Mike is finishing up the bathroom today (I hope), and I'll get to cleaning this place as soon as he's done. Dad's headed our way tomorrow, Christmas Eve dinner is at Jessica's house, and Christmas day festivities are here, including breakfast, gift opening and dinner.

Oh, and the Ducks got spanked last night in their bowl game. Ha! So sorry, Dad. Tim says they were still getting over their loss to OSU in the Civil War. =)

Broccoli and More

A couple of weeks ago I made broccoli for dinner and Kate started to try to say it. She's getting better at the word, but it still sounds more like 'braw-wi' than 'broccoli'. Still, we know what she means, and it's just cute to hear her say it. She loves the stuff, too. I'm not sure if she's using it as a butter/salt delivery device, but I'll take it. Braw-wi has now become one of her encompass-all words, meaning that she uses it for things she likes. Cookies, for example, are braw-wi. So is cheese.

One of Kate's favorites: Mom's Christmas chocolate chip cookies.

I've also started bribing my daughter to use her signs. She knows several, but refuses to use them. Except when she wants something very badly. Then, then I can get her to sign 'more', 'milk' (don't even get me started on what she thinks this sign is - I totally blame her Dad for the hand-waving that passes for milk), or 'eat'. We've been working on 'more' by using cookies. She only gets more when she uses the sign, and it's working! Isn't it great? I'm becoming one of those moms I swore I'd never be: letting my child have sugar, turning on the DVD player while I'm trying to make dinner (this still doesn't work; the kid has no interest in TV except to touch the buttons and hear me say 'no touch' repeatedly), and letting her play with my cell phone more and more, just to keep her from whining about it. I'm sure all of these things will backfire, but sometimes it's worth it to have some (temporary) quiet. Yesterday I think I let her do all of the aforementioned things. When Tim got home, she wanted to cuddle with him; I guess she's not feeling quite right, or maybe she just missed her Dad. It's so hard to tell.