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.

Sock Monkey

Sofie received a very special sock monkey as a gift this year from her Great Grannie Gracie. In fact, Evander received one too since Grannie Gracie has been a very busy elf this year and made one by hand for each of her seven Great Grandchildren. As you can see, Sofie lost no time fixing up her monkey, girly girl that she is. Monkey has become a dignified lady complete with sweater, hairbow, and earrings (yes earrings!) And is it just me or does her monkey mouth suddenly look like it's got a fresh coat of red lipstick? Silly girl!

Merry Christmas!

We must have a couple of very nice children because Santa sure did leave us a lot of fun things to play with this year! We woke up to presents galore beneath the Christmas tree...


...and a special surprise waiting for a sweet little girl in our kitchen too! (Rumor has it that one of Santa's elves spent several hours putting it together at our house on Christmas Eve. Those elves are just so dedicated to making children's faces light up on Christmas morning!)


Evander enjoyed all the commotion, bows, and wrapping paper, and a special Santa hand-me-down from his big sister...




Sofie seemed to be in shock, but had a merry time opening up all her packages and spent lots of time playing with each one's contents before moving along. Here she is in baby doll heaven...


We let her discover her new kitchen on her own and we were nearly an hour into our festivities when she finally exclaimed, "Wook at dis!" and set to work trying it out. I could swear I saw her peering at it several times before she actually acknowledged it. I wonder what she was thinking :) In this picture you can see she's busy cooking with some makeshift pots and pans. Later she got some real ones in another package, but she was too busy playing to open presents at this point!




Here she is showing her babies how the oven works. What a little mommy!


After everything was finally opened Sofie and Daddy had a fun time exploring some books with Sofie's new Tag reading system.


Here are the requisite pictures of the aftermath!



And...somehow I never seem to get a decent picture of the kids in their Christmas outfits. I don't have a single picture of Sofie in her Christmas dress last year, and this is the best picture I managed this year.


Once we were all "dooded up" we rounded out our day with a visit to Nana and Grandma's house for lunch and more presents and then an evening at Grannie (Great Grannie!) Gracie's house. Absolutely exhausting, but in the best sort of way! It was the most wonderful Christmas I can remember since my own childhood. Can't wait for next year!!

Four Months

Moose you are four months old and you've spent this month charming our socks off. Just a few short months ago, when I was having an exceptionally rough time transitioning from a parent of one to a parent of two, a kind midwife told me that things would get easier in stages. "Things get a little easier at six weeks," she said, "and then easier still by twelve weeks. By the time you hit the six month mark things will feel normal again." So far she has been absolutely correct, and your grinning and giggles certainly have a way of making me forget about the hard stuff!

You are getting so strong. You spend your tummy time locking your little arms firm to push your chest right up off the ground. You grab everything in sight and it all goes straight into your mouth for a nice coating of slobber. You are rolling with ease from your back to your stomach and you've accidentally rolled from your stomach to your back a few times too. When I put you down for a little play time I usually return to find you flipped over and half a circle from where I left you. It will only be a matter of time before you'll be my constant underfoot companion.

You're pretty easy going most of the time and you love to watch what's going on around you. You'll sit in the swing or the Bumbo seat intently watching us go about our daily activities and when I glance up to check on you I'm always greeted with an instantaneous grin. You seem to think Sofie is magical and you are pleased as punch when she takes a moment to goof around with you. She is the lucky recipient of most of your laughter.

You've got me pretty convinced that you'll teeth earlier than Sofie did because you've been coated with drool for the past few weeks and you want everything to go straight to your mouth. Your hands are still the easiest target and you're often gnawing on your thumb, but you will attack my hands, shirt, arms, face, and any toys within reach. You sit on my lap during mealtimes and you get so excited each time I take a bite and the food comes towards you, kicking your legs and leaning in for the kill. We gave you your first taste of cereal this weekend and you were so thrilled to see that spoon finally coming to your mouth. You grabbed for it with both hands and guided it right in...and then you were so monumentally disappointed! Thank goodness there are tastier things in the world than rice cereal :)

Van, when we brought you home and set to work learning how to manage a second child a friend commented that having another baby makes things, "exponentially harder." He was right, but what he failed to mention was that your presence here would make our lives exponentially better too. Your little glowing face has helped us muddle through the rough spots and we look forward to spending each and every day, good or bad, with you.

O Christmas Tree

We put up our sad little Christmas tree (which I secretly love) tonight. This was the first year that Sofie was really able to participate in the trimming, hence:

In case you're unsure of what you're seeing here, it is no less than ten tree ornaments all hung on the same two bottom most branches. Now, those of you who know me well will not be surprised when I admit that I am a wee bit anal about some pretty silly things like, oh I don't know, ornament spacing? But every time I look at those poor sagging branches I have to stifle a giggle and so there will be absolutely no rearranging while my sweet unsuspecting little girl sleeps.

I'm not particularly fond of decorating the Christmas tree but one of my favorite things to do every year is pull out all the Christmas ornaments and reminisce. I've been collecting ornaments for awhile now, picking one out each time we visit some place new, and almost every ornament has some sort of story or special significance behind it. I'm really looking forward to the days when I can bore the kids with all my tales :) This year the most poignant ones for me were all Vance family-centric. The small collection we've got going from my niece and nephew, beginning with Lillie's tiny baby hand print from '04. The log cabin ornament Janna gave me on my birthday when we were vacationing in Colorado the year I was pregnant with Sofie, and the one from Mohican Lodge I got last year when we all stayed there for Kyle and DeAnna's wedding. I suppose I'm missing the crew this holiday season more than I had realized. I feel very lucky to be near so much of our extended family and to firmly look forward to the days when we get to reunite with those who are far in miles, but always nearby in our thoughts and memories.