Don't Blink

We recently spent almost 3 weeks in California with my family, first for a family wedding and then for a robotics tournament that my youngest brother participated in (his team did awesome - easily the best individual robot there, his team won the most prestigious award, and their three-team alliance came in second. I'm kinda proud).

But during those two weeks, little Miss Ellie decided to grow up. She had been crawling for about a month, but not far or fast. And then in the space of two weeks, she was crawling everywhere, pulling herself up, getting back down, waving hello, cutting a third tooth -- and in the week since, a fourth -- and saying "Ellie" (which she pronounces the way her brother does - "eh-yah") and "hi." It was funny to come home and realize that we were not at all babyproofed - I had moved breakables and tearables and chokables off the bottom shelves, but suddenly the second shelves, end tables, and night stands were in danger too! If I go insane, it's because of the great love of Duplos that my children share. Or rather, one's great love of building that seems to directly contradict the other's love for destruction. And the fact that Ellie can now reach every surface Kekoa can, so nothing is safe.



We determined she was an extrovert. Kekoa used to save all his big milestones for right after a trip, when he was relaxing at home. She was totally energized by our crazy schedule full of crowds and socializing.

This, of course, means that I have an introvert who freaks out if we're out too much and an extrovert who freaks out if we're in too much. But whatever. Fortunately both our kids are similar to one of their parents - Josh and Ellie will be the social ambassadors and Kekoa and I will be the homebodies. It's all good.

We also pulled out the rest of my old baby clothes. Miss Ellie now has so many sweet summer dresses, I need it to be summer STAT. And speaking of me as a baby....

Ellie at 8 months

Me at 8 months - look like anyone you know?

Kekoa had a grand old time with his cousin on my side of the family - the two boys got along splendidly and were adorable together. Most toddlers aren't really interested in playing together, but his cousin was and that made Kekoa so, so happy. Like, new best friend happy. Looking at pictures later: "It's my favorite dog Benji! It's [cousin!]! I love him! My favorite friend!"

He also adored the robots and promptly got to work making some when he found his Duplos (you can see why it looks this way by seeing one of my brother's robot matches here - I'm a proud sister).  The other trucks are the audience who intermittently yell "Come on guys!" and "Great job Uncle Andy!"

Another funny thing Kekoa has started is using placeholders when he thinks there ought to be more adult words, but he doesn't know which ones. So he'll be telling me a story:

"Hey Mommy! We went on a walk to the library and eee uh ah ooh ee ah see a police car!"

Or when he's singing, if he can't remember the rest of the line: "Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light, ah uh ah oh in eh oh EEMING"

They're all very distinctly pronounced syllables and he doesn't miss a beat as if he's searching for words or saying "um." He just acts as if everything he said was perfectly clear.

That is something that can be said for toddlers: life is never boring. Mind-numbingly repetitive - yes. But boring? Not so much.

Kekoa Miscellaneous

Kekoa wanted to eat some M&Ms, to which he is allergic, and Josh told him that it would make him very, very itchy. "But we have plenty lotion!"

"Hear the ffff sound for the F words....ffff in fire truck and in...birfday candles!  fffff fffff fffff hooray! Going to be free! All of these words have an f."

(in case you didn't get that... ffff ffff ffff is blowing out the candles, and "free" is "three")


While getting his hair combed:  "Okay Dad, I'm done being calm." After which he proceeded to indeed be done.


Kekoa was Ellie's biggest cheerleader when she was figuring out how to crawl....until he realized that anything left on the floor is fair game.  "No, you can't crawl anymore. Too little!"


Ellie was crying and Kekoa brought her all his toys to comfort her. When she persisted in screaming, he decided it was time to put his foot down:  "That's ENOUGH, Ellie. You MUST calm down now."

Those younger siblings are just all kinds of trouble: "No, Ellie! You can't go potty in your pants! You must go potty in the potty!"

And of course, sometimes you just get fed up of keeping a youngster in line. Kekoa, talking to himself: "No, don't kick the baby. That is NOT a good plan."

"Look at my horsey!"

He has his sweet moments, too. We moved Ellie into Kekoa's room last month, and it has worked out beautifully. The other night Ellie didn't want to sleep and started to cry. We waited a few minutes, then heard Kekoa talking to her: "It's okay Ellie, I'm right here." She calmed down immediately and we heard some giggles for a few minutes, then silence.

Around 11:00 pm, I heard Kekoa crying, so I went in to check on him. He had brought his pillow next to her Pack n' Play and slept on the floor next to her - she was pressed up against the mesh netting to be close to him. But his blankets were stuck behind his bed and he was shivering under a thin receiving blanket.  "It's okay, Bud," I whispered. "You can sleep in your bed and I'll tuck you in."

"But Ellie needs me!"

It doesn't get any better than that. <3 p="">

I could be wrong but.....

...the bouncer might have outlived its usefulness as a safe place to put baby.

...you're probably married to a math nerd if your toddler tells you, "Hey, I drew pi!" and your response is, "Wow, where did you learn about pie? It's been months since we last ate pie!" and then you see this:

 ...leaving the change of clothes in the car isn't a great idea in subzero temperatures because that will be the day your baby blows out. Thankfully other moms (of boys) actually have changes of clothes on hand.

...brotherly love might be sweeter in theory than practice.

don't worry, she has teeth so this is definitely not a one-way street

 ...we might have overdone the schedule over the last couple months.

...if you ever feel like yes, you CAN handle this crazy schedule and look! you've even gotten nicely dressed for your guests, Murphy will make sure this happens at the exact moment your guests are climbing the stairs:

...we desperately need to get Mr. OCD some warm weather to play in so I can accidentally bump the table without causing a minor family crisis.

.....Ellie might have resigned herself to chairs.

....it might be a few years before taking family pictures isn't a circus act of people jumping behind the photographer clapping and playing peek-a-boo to get smiles (and usually failing).

...little boy fingernails seem to grow with dirt already under them, since it's been too cold to play without mittens so WHERE DOES IT COME FROM??

...in months like these, it should be a crime to do anything but snuggle up under blankets with a cup of hot chocolate.

Month 5: With holidays like these, who needs Mondays?

This was my first Christmas. My first New Year. My first winter snow. According to the baby calendar, these are supposed to be happy days in the life of us babies (you know, if we weren't oblivious to anything except milk).

Well, I'm not really a huge fan of my first round of holidays. These holidays chewed us up and spit us out. It all started a couple days before Christmas when my brother had an allergic reaction. He wanted someone to cuddle with him to help him feel better, but Mom had to clean the carpet. So I took care of him while she was busy.

Then on Christmas Eve, I got to open a new outfit that I was going to wear to Christmas Eve service. From my first impressions, that's pretty much what Christmas is all about, right? Giving little girls pretty clothes and adoring them?

Close enough to 5 months

Unfortunately, before we left Mommy took my temperature. Then she said I couldn't go anywhere and I had to go to bed early and I was really sad.

Fortunately, I was feeling better on Christmas. My brother was for some reason happy to get a chair, even though chairs are a vast conspiracy by parents to not hold their kids. I personally prefer being held at all times. But whatever.

I, on the other hand, got more clothes in keeping with the true spirit of Christmas. I was quite excited to show them off and Daddy got me all dressed up on Sunday.....but then Mommy was sick! So I stayed home to take care of her (are you sensing a theme about the TRUE family caretaker here?).

Mommy said the best way to take care of her was to sleep a lot

Then it was New Year's Eve. "Finally!" I thought. "I can finally show off some of my new clothes!" So for the THIRD time that week, I got all dressed up....and then Mommy took my brother's temperature.

He had chills, hence the mittens and the hat and the jeans over the pjs and the miserable expression

So we ended up staying at home for a quiet New Year's Eve where no one actually slept. It wasn't very much fun. At this point Mommy and I gave up on ever leaving the house again and resorted to taking Mother-Daughter selfies to show off our Christmas clothes.

We laid low the next couple days. Fortunately, that chair and his new movie came in handy, and my brother lazed about in his brand new monster truck footie pajamas until he felt better.

But as soon as his fever went down, my brother had ANOTHER allergic reaction (apparently he's allergic to the holidays) and felt really bad for a while. He narrowly avoided an ER trip, but managed to weasel all sorts of privileges/special treatments out of Mom and Dad.

At this point we pretty much stopped bothering with clothes. Once Mommy tried to get us all dressed but I spit up all over both of us within 15 minutes, so she just gave up completely and put me back in my pajamas. So my brother got to wear his monster truck pjs 3 days in a row.  

Mom probably should have at least rotated pajamas so that the pictures LOOK different

I got a little tired of my brother getting all the attention, so I decided to steal some of it back with a couple sleepless nights of my own...and I cut a tooth! My theory is that having a low pain tolerance gets you more attention, so that's the route I plan to take.

 Fortunately, we're all back on our feet now (figuratively, anyway. Some of us need to learn how to crawl first). But we are quite glad to have the holidays behind us. And with the cold cold temperatures...I foresee a lot of pajama days in our future! Now that's something to celebrate.

2.5

It seems like all my friends post pictures of their kids' birthdays and such with captions like, "It seems like he was a babe in my arms just yesterday!" or "One minute you're a brand new mommy, the next minute you're taking them off to college."

Well. Kekoa will be two and a half this month. And I can assure you, he was not born yesterday. In fact, if I had to guess, I would say he has been two for no less than six years.

But oh my goodness, the laughter. Fortunately for him, I have a rule against posting super embarrassing things, or this post would be full of potty humor. But there is plenty of laughter otherwise. It's a fun stage, just not a particularly speedy one.

One time he lost his yellow dice, which had fallen behind me. I made the mistake of magically pulling it out of his ear. Now every time he loses a dice, he comes running to me while digging in his ears: "Mommy, find my dice!"

Ellie will be an expert in trucks by the time she's one.

He's very loving and affectionate.  If he is eating a favorite food, he always checks to see if Ellie can have some too.  He likes to read to her (but he doesn't quite understand her shakiness when sitting up). If I ask him to take care of her, he will sit next to her and hold her hand until I come back.


He's a control freak. Bags are the best containers for his toys because he spends too much time lining things up in bins. Cleaning up takes forever because everything has to be just so. He will not tolerate putting on the left shoe first, or praying for Mommy before we pray for Ellie. If he has perceived an order to the universe, then he expects the universe to always follow that order.

He's a huge truck fan. Every week we check out books from the library on dump trucks and fire trucks and bulldozers, and he spends hours with his Duplos.  I think his most impressive creation so far is a car transporter:

He loves to sing and can spout off all four verses to "O Come O Come Emmanuel." Pentatonix is his favorite band, and he has all the words memorized to most of their (clean) songs. He also enjoys beat boxing (a.k.a. spitting he can get away with) and clapping rhythms.

Like his father, he (unfortunately) doesn't need a lot of sleep. Like his mother, he (unfortunately) falls apart rather quickly if he doesn't get enough. If he sleeps in past 6:00 am, then he doesn't need an afternoon nap. If he takes an afternoon nap, he's up by 5:00 am the next morning. Mommy can't decide whether she prefers sleeping in or peaceful afternoons, so we compromise with neither.

He sees no need for baths but takes them to prove that he is as brave as Ellie. He hates socks but loves mittens. He spent all summer sweating in bed under three heavy fuzzy blankets, and now spends his nights curled up and shivering in the cold while his three blankets languish beside the bed.

Summer...that is sweat glistening on his face

Winter

He believes that almond butter is synonymous with honey, which we shamelessly use to our advantage. He loves fruit. Blend that fruit up and call it a smoothie, and he won't touch it. Add some chicken broth to the smoothie and call it fruit soup and he'll devour it.

Yeah. He's a weird kid.

One day he was reading a Pepsi machine.
"P-E-P-S-I," he read.
"That spells Pepsi," I said.
"Oh," he said, and looked at the logo. "And red, white, blue spells....JUICE!"

He's a paradox who believes in alone time but not personal space. He is both our wild child and our thoughtful one. It would be easier, of course, to have a kid who didn't hold his opinions quite so....passionately. But it is so, so rewarding to watch him develop self-control and self-discipline, stopping tantrums mid-cycle and even initiating discipline. He puts himself into timeout and has started apologizing without prompting. My proudest parenting moment to date was the day he found himself on the brink of a tantrum. He took a deep, shudder-y breath, closed his eyes, and said, "I'm sorry, Mama. Big hug, please."

Heart. melt.

And that's our Koa....or as we most often refer to him, "Oh, that Koa." He is something else, and we love him oh so much.

How to Have a Super Productive Monday

You had a crazy busy weekend and have put some huge tasks behind you. You are looking forward to knocking things off your Christmas to-do list, starting today! It's going to be a wonderful Monday.

Step 1: The children sleep until 7:00, and wake up cheerful and patient. So far so good.
Step 2: Get everyone fed, dressed, toileted, etc. You're on track for an A+ day.

Step 3: Review to-do list. Prepare suitable Christmas-y playlist.
Step 4: Dance to Christmas playlist.
Step 5: Load up breakfast dishes and get the dishwasher running.

Step 6: Notice dishwasher is leaking all over the floor.

Step 7: Call management. They'll be there in ten minutes. Remember to be grateful for the benefits of renting.
Step 8: Pull everything out from under the sink. Grab every towel in the house to sop up water.

Step 9: Call management, again, twenty minutes later. Water is still leaking even though the dishwasher is off. 

Step 10: Ummm....anyone there?

Step 11: Management arrives. Hold clingy toddler who is (rightfully) wary of the strange loud men tearing up his kitchen.

Step 12: Management delivers good news: you're getting a new dishwasher! They'll be right back with it. Receive their full assurances that you can use the sink now.

Step 13: Replace the items under the sink.
Step 14: Clean out the filthy, mucky, muddy gaping hole that used to house a dishwasher. 
Step 15: Rinse out the rag you've been using to clean out the filthy, mucky, muddy gaping hole.
Step 16: Discover Management lied about using the sink.

Step 17: Remove everything under the (flooded) sink. Throw away the (flooded) roll of paper towels. Retrieve the last of the towels to sop up the (flooded) floor and (flooded) under-sink area.

Step 18: It's lunchtime. Realize you can't get into the fridge because of the nasty dishwasher sitting in front of it.
Step 19: Taco Bell it is.

Step 21: Keep the child up from his nap because Management will be back any second and you don't want to wake him up.
Step 22: Management will be back any second..

Step 29: Annnnnnnnny second....

Step 38: Decide you might as well put the (grumpy exhausted) child down, because Management isn't coming back any time soon.

Step 42: Management comes back ten minutes later. Child wakes up. Child is upset.

Step 43: Management installs the dishwasher.
Step 44: Management discover that the sink is not in fact usable.
Step 45: Snicker.

Step 46: Management (now wet and mucky) tells you that the problem was not the dishwasher after all, but the sink.
Step 47: Cross your fingers and hope you get to keep the new dishwasher.
Step 48: Management fixes the sink (it takes ten minutes)
Step 49:  Goodbye, Management

Step 50: Look at to-do list. Look at clock.

Step 51: Redate to-do list for Tuesday. No, you know what? This is really more of a Wednesday sort of list.

Step 52: Write new to-do list:

____Get new dishwasher

Step 53: Check off to-do-list:

__x___Get new dishwasher

Step 54: Look at to-do list. Realize you really went the extra mile, and fix to-do list:

__x___ Get new dishwasher

__x___Mop kitchen floor (BONUS CHORE)

Step 55: Recall that mopping the kitchen floor is, in fact, a Thursday chore. You are ahead for the week.

Step 56: Congratulate yourself for exceeding expectations, on a Monday of all days, and all before 4:00pm. Have a piece of chocolate.

END

Month 4: Sleepy is as Sleepy Does

Ellie had a lot of firsts this month. She has developed little wispy curls at the back of her head, and has started seriously teething. She'll nom anything that comes near her mouth - including hair, matchbox cars, and college students. If drool were a currency, we'd be rolling in wealth (and I mean that quite literally).

She's definitely been working out, because her muscles are getting pretty strong. She's been sitting up unassisted for longer and longer stretches of time - it won't be too long before she can sit reliably.

Her bubbly little soul has been busy melting hearts:

 

And she's been picking up new nicknames left and right:

We  call this one the "Goober-Mensch." Nerd jokes, anyone? Anyone? No? Okay. 

Kekoa introduced her to his favorite baby toy, the little piano.

 She thought it was so great that she wanted to push the buttons.  Unfortunately, she couldn't figure out how to lean on one elbow without rolling over.

It was great fun until it wasn't anymore.

Speaking of that Koa, how's he doing? Oh, just fine. Lately he's been pinning himself to walls and shouting "Help help! I'm stuck!" as he tries to pull away.  

there's an invisible hand holding him to the wall. really.

 Back to Elle-Belles. She was utterly underwhelmed by her first snow.

And got to spend her first Thanksgiving with her Uncle Aaron, among others.

It was a pretty good month. Especially because she started sleeping 10-12 hours a night.  When the weather turned cold we discovered that keeping the apartment a little chilly keeps the kids in bed longer...talk about perverse incentives! She adores watching her big brother, gets excited about eating, and loves video calls with the grandparents. She's also getting to the stage where she's a little bored with the little baby stuff like bouncers and not quite ready for big baby stuff like jumpers.

I think I've told Josh a million times this month "I wish we could just freeze her at this age," because it's really just perfect. But I also can't wait to see what comes next. :)