Goofballs

For those of you who've been complaining about the severe picture drought around here lately...

Smarty Pants

Five Months

Moose, you are five months old and counting and you are growing like a weed. At your five month check up you weighed in at nearly eighteen pounds and at 26.5 inches you've outgrown the height limit on your infant car seat. You are thriving on a diet of little more than mama milk, since you're still entirely unimpressed with baby food. Every couple of days I try again to get you to eat some, in hopes that maybe you'll warm up to it eventually, only to be met with complete disinterest. You'll open your mouth for me once or twice and then you've moved on to crumpling up your bib and working on shoving that in your mouth, gripping the spoon so tightly that I can't pry it from your fingers, or craning your neck around to see what your sister might be up to. I've got my work cut out for me!

You are going through a very sensory stage and your arms seem to have a mind of their own. You hold them out straight and tense and waggle them around until you feel something and then your little fingers grip it as tight as tight can be. The ultimate goal, of course, is to move whatever you've managed to grasp close enough to your mouth to get a good taste of it. You are SO strong. Recently you pulled a straw from my drink and I had a really difficult time prying it out of your hand so I could finish my drink. You're particularly fond of Sofie's hair and manage to get a fistful of it nearly every time she leans over to smother you with kisses. You're lucky she's a benevolent soul!

New tricks you've been working on this month include blowing spit bubbles (this keeps you quite entertained!), sitting up (more and more steadily each day), trying really hard to get up onto your hands and knees, and playing with your socks (more accurately your shoes or socks with the goal of getting one off and into your mouth.)

You are a rotten sleeper, waking up every three or four hours throughout the night. You do NOT like your crib and as much as I've tried to get you used to it you'll almost never sleep for more than an hour in it. You still sleep pretty soundly in your swing (we should've bought rechargeable batteries!) but somewhere along the line, I literally have no recollection of how it even happened, you managed to become an almost permanent fixture in our bed. Now I'm not going to say that the arrangement is getting me much more sleep, as it is certainly poor quality sleep at best, and as I type this sentence I am concurrently brainstorming strategies to get you sleeping better in your own space, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not enjoying your warm little body lying next to me, or that it never strikes me how sweet it is to smell your milky breath each time I stir. You are my little baby, probably my last baby, and I want to savor each snuggly moment I have with you, even if it means waking up crink-necked each morning!

Confession

So did you watch the latest momversation? The topic was "bad parenting moments" or something equivalent. It's the perfect segue to a thought I've had bumbling around in my head a lot recently and have felt compelled to share. Not, by far, my worst parenting moment, but something I'm not proud of. Traditionally I do not do cabin fever well. When I'm stuck in the house for longer than one day I find myself feeling very cooped up and miserable. The recent snow has had me unwilling to bundle up the crew and venture out. So as the walls have closed in on me I've found myself becoming increasingly aware of the small person who always seems to be standing, or maybe just shuffling along slowly, right where I need to be. The one that I'm constantly telling, "Ok, move over I need to open the dishwasher." or, "Excuse me! I need to get the milk out of the fridge." or, "Can you walk a little faster? Mommy needs to pee." I can't help feeling like I've got a little soccer ball constantly underfoot and so it's perfectly natural, don't you think, to be resisting the urge to gently kick it out of the way 20 or so times per day...

Tricks and Giggles: A Video Montage

It's so hard for me to believe that the holidays are over already. They really whizzed by for me this year and, while they were a lot of fun, I'm enjoying getting back to the daily grind and remembering what "normal" felt like. We've been reluctant to venture outside much since the snow started falling a few days ago, but we've been keeping ourselves entertained inside pretty well...

Sofie is becoming a real whiz at the slide whistle...



...and Evander is working on his newest trick, (cautiously) sitting up unassisted. (I edited out most of the episodes of my hand randomly jutting out when I thought he was going to fall!)



When we get tired of playing with all the new toys we just goof off and see if we can make V laugh. That's good for countless hours of entertainment!






Hope you're all staying warm and enjoying your recuperation as much as we are!

Christmas Passed

An exchange between Sofie and I this morning…

Me: “Did you see our Christmas tree?”

Sofie: Long pause as she stares at the tree, and then, “You put stuff in a box?” referring to the ornaments that were hanging there as recently as last night when she went to bed.

Me: “Mm-hm. It’s time to put it away for the year.”

Sofie: “It’s at Nana’s house? Where it goes?”

Me: “Mm-hm. In the basement.” She already knows this, of course, because she’s seen it down there a million times when she goes down to play with all the toys Nana has been collecting from garage sales since before she was born.

Sofie: “Needa take it to Nana’s house.”

Indeed we do. Daily I am amazed by what she knows, what she understands, how she's processing life at just two and nearly a half.