Update - we have lift-off!

Kate is walking. It started last Friday, the day before we went to Lewisburg for a 4th of July party. She was just doing that hovering thing and occasionally taking one step, followed by a swift descent (i.e., plop, on her bottom). Suddenly she just decided to go for it, and next thing we knew she was doing 10-15 steps through the living room. She's not terribly stable yet, but she has the basics down pat. She still drops down to crawl when she needs some speed, though.

Recent things

Finn:

• Major news story: Finally, potty training is here. We have officially been in underwear for about 2 weeks, with only 2 accidents. He seems (knock on wood) to have it down pat!

• Current obsessions: Mario, swinging on his new swingset, riding in the bottom part of Kate's stroller whenever we go for a family walk, Mario, reading a Mo Willem's Pigeon book we got from the library, and did I mention Mario.

• Unfortunates: Occasionally says "I don't want a baby" (referring to Kate), melt-down city whenever we turn off Mario (note: Mommy is NOT happy about how much Mario watching is going on), fusses about any food we put in front of him (including things he likes, like PB&J sandwiches, and don't even ask about fruits or veggies). Also a few bad words have snuck into his vocabulary (see above re: Mario time).

• Good things: Had our first trip to the dentist (mine too, at least in a number of years) and it went smoothly. No cavities for either of us. Finn let the dentist brush his teeth with no fussing (and sat through my longer part of the visit).

• Common sayings: Maybe (as in, maybe we could go to Krisna's house later, or maybe we could play Mario more after lunch... it's the way he says it--it's hard to describe).

Kate:

• Major news story: Almost walking! Crawls everywhere, does stairs like a breeze (although she can't really be trusted on them by herself), and stands and "hovers", maybe taking 1 step, but note quite ready to step out fully.

• Current obsessions: Talking, going in the bathroom and standing by the tub, going up stairs, "reading" books, saying hi (except when prompted to).

• Unfortunates: High high high in the stubbornness and will power--she knows what she wants to do and she's damned if she's going to let you stop her without expressing her displeasure. Places she likes to go that are a nuisance: up the stairs (because she can't be trusted to do it on her own), in the bathroom, into the bedroom to open up the poopy diaper pail. Still very difficult to put to bed, and has a habit of waking up around 1am.

• Good things: Starting to get past the issue with other people holding her, although she stills cries for me when I don't pick her up or take her from someone else. She's so chatty; that's my favorite thing. She picks up new words so easily!

• Common sayings (this is for Grandma, who said I hadn't posted enough of Kate's words): Hat, duck, kitty, book, Mommy, Daddy, milk, goosey-goose, hi, bye-bye, more, sorry, no. This week she's working on Grandma and Grandpa, since they are visiting.

All about our birthday boy!

We now officially have a 4-year-old. Yikes! Perhaps this is good, though. Supposedly there are the terrible 2's, but my husband thinks that the real "terrible" age is 3; it's just that nobody says so because it's actually SO terrible that you repress it. The year of "3" was harder for us with Finn than the year of "2" but we'll have to wait to see how it goes with Kate before we generalize. But anyway...

HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY FINN!

Things about Finn:

He's still not greatly interested in potty training, even though he knows that he can't go to school until it happens. He uses the potty, but it seems fairly random when he'll choose to do that versus going in his pull-up. For myself, I think he's ready to be transitioned over full force, but because I'm not at home full time, it's not completely up to me.

He speaks very politely a lot of the time, which makes me really happy and proud, but he has a short fuse for frustration and he still hits when very frustrated. I have a hard time figuring out how to help him along with that, being as I have a horrible temper myself. He also can't always tell when something is a game and when it's gone beyond a game. When he plays with other kids who want to play games that involve throwing balls at each other, or pushing objects toward each other (swords, boxing-esque gloves, etc.), he can easily go too far with it. I never know exactly what to do about that either. If he hits another child because the other child instigated a very physical game, I always feel bad but I also feel like it's a shared responsibility there. But it's hard to communicate that to a young child (i.e., Finn OR the other children involved). I just tell him to apologize and not to hit and hope for the best in the long run.

He's getting sneakier. Just today, hubby relayed to me via phone that Finn snuck into the kitchen and ate the tops off of several of the birthday cupcakes we baked. He then put the rest of the cupcakes into the trash. Now that's definitely strategically impish behavior.

Our current favorite misused word: constructions--like "Let's read the constructions to the game."

He was an extremely gratifying birthday boy in terms of getting presents. He didn't do the grabby gimme approach (which would be normal for this age, and not necessarily indicative of greediness in long-term, but it's still nice that he didn't). Instead, he responded with supreme (and honest) excitement at every single gift that was open, using the phrase "WOW, it's my very own... [fill in the blank]." He did this equally for everything from the large Thomas the Tank Engine tent (below) to the small potty-related book (above). He was a total sweetheart, and it was a really nice birthday!

And so it goes...

They just keep growing and learning new things. It's so hard to keep up.

Kate:

• Crawling, full-blown--much more than Finn ever did. Pulls up to standing. Not too steady on her feet for actual walking purposes. Really wants to try the stairs but doesn't know what to do once she's standing in front of them--can't figure out to put her knee up on the first step.

• Lots of babbling: Says "sh" for fish (and she says it for any new fish you give her, so I'd say that counts as a word). Says "No" all the time--she's got a will of her own, and doesn't like to be told no. I think she's saying no back to us, not just repeating what we said. Definitely says "row row row" now when you sing "Row row row your boat." She often has what sound like full conversations but without any actual words.

• She can do "slap me five" and loves the song "Head shoulders knees and toes", to which she tries to do the movements in a very gross-motor way. Overall she loves being sung to.

Finn:

• The pacifier is gone. He still wishes he had it sometimes, but it ended up deteriorating and we had to get rid of it, and we didn't buy any more for him. Kate still has hers--for the most part that doesn't seem to be a bone of contention for Finn.

• Potty training is moving along, slowly but surely. We can't really count on him staying dry in underwear, but he will stop things he's doing and ask to use the potty sometimes. That's really enough for us for now.

• His ideas are becoming more complex. For a week or so now, he's been obsessed with going to see his cousin Dante. I don't know what led to this obsession, but he asks everyday if we can go see Dante. This morning, when I left for work, he told me I need to walk to work so that I don't take the car, because they need it to go see Dante. Hubby told me later that he decided the plan would be to walk to Dante's (I guess because I did take the car). Yes, by all means let's walk the 300+ miles from our house to theirs. :)

• He still sulks a lot. I never expected this much sulking from a little kid. I expected temper tantrums, but not the moody blues! Bedtimes have become particularly hard with lots of sulking about having to go up. Last night, interestingly, he let me read two stories from a kid's chapter book and then when I asked him which story he wanted next he told me, "None. I'm tired now." Go figure!

The little things

Kate: Fast approaching her first birthday (in 3 1/2 weeks)

• The other day when I came home from work, she waved at me without any prompting, and when I waved back, she flashed me a huge smile! Those moments are the real "keepers"!

• She did peekaboo herself this morning, with a towel. After I held it over her face a couple of times and took it away saying "Peekaboo," she took the towel with both hands, held it up over her face, and then brought it down with a smile!

• So close to crawling! She sits on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth, but doesn't know what to do next.

• My husband swears she says "row row row" when she hears the rest of us singing Row Row Row Your Boat. I only partially heard it, but I think she said it too! She also imitates me when I say "No no no no no no" (like when I see her reaching for a cup of yogurt I'm holding--it actually sounds more like nuh-nuh-nuh; it's not a sharp "No!").

Recent incident to remember: When the whole family went to Pittsburgh for a Psych conference, we had a beautiful trip out. We drove to Central PA, stopped in Lewisburg and stayed the night with friends, and then drove the rest of the way the next day. Both kids slept well that night and did great in the car! Then, 1:30 in the morning our first night in the hotel, Kate starts throwing up and doesn't stop until 5am. We were totally psyched out by our kids, too, because as they went to bed, Finn was the one who was coughing in the way that sounds like it might become throwing up. Hubby and I were both sitting there in the mostly dark room with our fingers crossed thinking "Don't get sick, Finn... don't get sick." Ha ha on us! Luckily, Finn slept through the entire ordeal! Kate didn't get sick the rest of the trip... but we were braced for it the whole time, so it wasn't particularly a great trip.

Finn: Coming up on 4 years old in a bit

• We signed him up for preschool next fall, and he knows that he has to be at least somewhat potty trained, so if you ask him about the potty, he says "When I use the potty, I can go to school." Still not using it too much, though.

• He makes up conversations between characters--e.g., he has two pirate guys and he has an imaginary conversation between them. I love catching little bits of that from the other room.

• He still uses his pacifier ("paci") a fair bit, but it seems less compulsive to me lately. He'll ask for it, but he doesn't feel lost without it. I even got him to go to bed without it once. His daddy doesn't seem ready to have him do that regularly, though.

• While still capable of being horribly broody, I feel like there's been a turn for the better lately. After we got back from our Pittsburgh trip (during which he was pretty temperamental), he seemed to turn a corner and has been much more pleasant and polite. There's still some of the normal 3-year-old striving for independence, but it's as if he's found a place to stand where the sun is shining on him, whereas before he was in a constant cloud. I'm not crazy enough to think that it will never go back to that grumpy place again, but I have to write it down when it's like this, so when it is miserable, I can think about the sun coming out again someday!

• Still no fruit besides juice, and next to no vegetables, but lately he's begun requesting shredded cheese. I know he gets enough dairy without it but I'm just so excited to have him voluntarily work something back into his repertoire that had been eliminated for a while.

• He loves to play baseball with me when I get home from work. He uses a variety of things for bats (a paper towel tube, a Gerber's puffs cylinder, a pretend cell phone, whatever!). He's actually pretty good at it. We're thinking of giving up on gymnastics (which he sulks at and doesn't want to participate in, for no reason that we can determine) and going back to one of our earliest principles re: Finn--anything goes as long as a ball is involved!

And so it ends...

Breastfeeding, that is.

After a much harder job maintaining breastfeeding with Kate than we had with Finn, we finally decided to end it. It was a mutual decision between Kate and myself, with my hubby's guidance, as well, on the final decision to end.

That makes the very last time I will breastfeed one of my children Saturday, Feb 28th, 2009--approx. 7:30am. It was a nice last time, at least.

I've talked with some of my playgroup Mom friends about the desire to know when the last time is going to be so that you can really enjoy it. Well, I have to say that I really haven't enjoyed breastfeeding Kate over these last few months. I'm happy I've done it, but it's alternated between being painful (and bloody--yuck!) for me, and being okay for me but upsetting for her, as if she didn't want it or wasn't get what she wanted out of it. I don't know why that would be--everytime she would start nursing and then break off wailing I would check to see if there was any flow and there certainly would be. I can't explain it. Lately we've wondered if she's had an ear infection and the pressure from the suction has been bothering her, but we can't find any other evidence of an ear infection (no fever, no prolonged crying). We were at a loss.

She's fine with taking a bottle, and since she's only about 11 months old, we will probably be doing some bottles of formula between now and when she turns 1 year. My preference would be to minimize that--I feel like these deadlines that the doctors make sound so hard-and-fast really don't need to be that black-and-white. She's almost a year; she eats plenty of pureed baby food, she loves yogurt, and pretty soon we'll go ahead and start her on whole milk. I really think that should be fine.

I'm not sad per se, but I do feel frustrated for not being able to finish out the year, which is what I wanted for her. I haven't actually brought up at playgroup that she was so close to being weaned, and it might be because I feel a little like this is a failure. Not necessarily one that rests squarely on my shoulders, but still... My hubby, my Mom, and a couple of other people who I've talked to about it have been very helpful in subtly reminding me (or not so subtly telling me right out) that this is not a failure, not a problem. This is a child who is very healthy and who benefited from breastfeeding for 11 months... quite a bit longer than the majority of moms nurse their children (if they do at all). I've always maintained that I don't have any concerns about mothers who choose not to nurse at all--so it might seem hypocritcal of me to be a bit sad now that we're starting up with formula. Really, though, my concern is not with Kate's health and the so-called "evils" of formula. I'm just a little frustrated that it didn't go as smoothly as with Finn. I'm still planning to get some nice bonding time with bottle-feeding for the next month, and by writing all of this out, I'm hoping to get the 1-month-short-of-a-year frustration out of my system.

And as I mentioned, the last time was nice. Kate took one side pleasantly (after wailing when I tried to give her the other side for no reason that I could figure out). We had a short but painless and fuss-free feeding and I watched her intently while she nursed and tried to make a mental moment out of it--having the feeling it might be the last time.

New pics and such

Here are some great pictures of the kids that our friend took at New Year's. Kate often puts her hand in her mouth this way. She also tends, while breastfeeding, to put her hand up to her forehead backwards (palm facing out) in a somewhat similar position to this. I wonder if she's thinking "Woe is me!" when she does it. It's kind of a woe-is-me sort of gesture.

Another new gesture besides clapping and waving--"So big"! I love that one. I never really knew about this phenomenon until after I had kids--"How big is Katie?" You ask. Then she puts her hands up high and you say "SOOO big!" It's as sweet as anything that ever was! She also has done both kinds of waving now (close and open the hand, and swivel the wrist). Betcha you didn't know there were two kinds... but there are. Actually, I'm thinking the Miss America wave is slightly different than either of these, so maybe there are three kinds, or more!

She is still a complete chatterbox when she's home, but when we go to see people she doesn't always show it, at least not right away. She takes a good while to get used to new places and new people. Sometimes she even stares warily at new people until she gets settled in. But she's definitely moving her language along--when we say "clap clap" to her, she responds back with a vocalization that sounds very close to "clap clap."

She's also getting closer to crawling. She'll move forward onto her hands and knees from a sitted position, but then her one leg gets stuck underneath and she just rocks back and forth. If she makes it over the stuck leg, using momentum, she ends up sprawled out on her belly. She doesn't mind at all, but it isn't quite crawling. She's clearly gonna be a mover and a shaker, though!



I like this picture of Finn, but at the same time it doesn't quite look like Finn to me. The mouth position is off, although I think it was just that he was caught in the middle of saying something.

Finn's language is getting more and more sophisticated, although I can't quite think of the best examples right now. He sometimes calls us "parents." He likes to sing the alternate verse to Row Row Row Your Boat (the one that ends: "Ha ha, fooled you, I'm a submarine!"). Actually, we all like singing that. :)

He sometime sulks as if he's a teenager, or at least so it seems to me. "I don't want to do nothin" he'll say in a dejected voice. I hope he's just getting it out of his system early. No major progress on the potty training front. We're looking at preschools this week, so hopefully potty training is somewhere on the horizon. He still thinks Mommy and Daddy and Katie and Bobby are his best friends! Thank goodness for those moments!

Have to run... I'm not supposed to be blogging; I'm supposed to be heading home from work.

Long time...

It's been a busy few months. Hence, no posts. Here are some of the things that have been happening (in no particular order).

Kate:

Teeth--as in 6 new ones.

Breastfeeding has had some pretty low downs (in part, see note above re: teeth). I've never been the kind of mom who feels all glow-y about breastfeeding to begin with, and really I'm just looking forward to being done with it, although I plan to keep going up to 1 year with Kate, if she's game.

Lots of babbling--she's a chatty girl. She really wants to talk.

Sitting up. Not much progression toward crawling, but she will sit up on her hands and knees with support.

My favorite new things: waves hi and claps!

Finn:

Tried potty training. Dismal failure. Became a serious issue, lots of fussy and crying ("I don't want to sit on the potty!"), like that. Even though he had a few successes, we had to stop for a while. It was just too frustrating for all of us, and I didn't want it to become some big psychological hang-up (for any of us). Recently tried introducing the potty again. Some successes with that here and there. He's definitely able to use it. He has twice pulled down his pull-up and used it (pee one time, poop the other). We're very excited about that, and lavish praise on him, but we're trying to still be casual about it. It's just there (i.e., the potty); if he uses it great, if not, well, fine. I am looking forward to not spending the extra money on diapers though.

Definitely a full-blown 3-year-old, with all of the appropriate aspects: temper tantrums, willfulness, "I want to do it myself", "No!", etc. Somehow we'll survive. If anyone knows how, let me know.

I don't want to leave off on a bad note, re: Finn, so here's some nice things. He tells great stories about what he and his Mario friends are doing. He reads letters really well. He definitely knows that letters make up words, which I'm really excited about. And lastly, he says "gank you" in the cutest way.

Here are some recent pics, and that's all for now. School starts soon, so there may be another break before I post again, or maybe I'll have my act together this semester.