Finn and Kate

OLD post (July 29th) -- posted late

2010-12-29T11:37:00.000-08:00

I wrote this post in July, and as I recall I went to post it and a glitch occurred and the whole darn thing erased. So I started fresh, but wrote it in Word and saved it dutifully... then never posted it. Here it is, blast from the past, major news and updates from July 29th. Maybe around June I'll get around to posting from this Fall.

Finn:

Major news stories: Finn is starting kindergarten this fall, and he is also going to have an evaluation for sensorimotor issues. His preschool teacher recommended this, and we’re willing to give it a try (the evaluation) to at least see if there is something we can give him help with. If he does have some sensorimotor issues, they may be related to his giving up and feeling like he can’t accomplish things, and (acc. to his teacher) his unwillingness at times to join in with the other kids in class even though he is interested in what they are doing. Over the summer, Finn took swimming lessons, and really enjoyed when we went to “armor games” (aka SCAdian events) at the Ukranian Homestead, where he got to go swimming and play on the Story Tree.
Earlier this year (late spring/early summer), Finn surprised me with his reading/writing skills when I hadn’t know he was developing them so strongly. He can read words to you by sounding them out, and he can write words phonetically, e.g., he wrote “TOO SAF” (translation: to Seth) on a birthday present for his friend with no help whatsoever! So exciting!!!

Current obsessions: Still Mario. He would prefer to be constantly playing Mario, watching Daddy play Mario, or watching Mario on the computer. I feel like he needs to be restrained a bit on this to make sure it doesn’t reach an unhealthy level of sedentary time. H. doesn’t necessarily agree and/or doesn’t always follow through on the restraint, which is a bit of a frustration to me. He also still likes to pretend he’s a kitten at times, but this isn’t as common as it used to be.

Unfortunates: A few things. The Mario thing is sort of unfortunate, I think. Also, Finn has such a hard time controlling his emotions and knowing what to do with them when he has them. He hits a lot, lately, and it’s become a difficult point between him and I. We had a very rough day where he was hitting and was incapable or unwilling to acknowledge the reason why hitting is not okay (even though I had just told him maybe 15 minute ago). I’m not sure if he’s pretending or what when he says “I don’t remember” but it’s really infuriating to me. He has such a strong memory for other things—it just makes him sound stupid, and on the whole I know he’s not. I can’t wait for him to get past this (I have to assume it’s a phase, or it will really depress me). Also, when he gets really upset, he reverts and acts like a baby with this grating whine/cry that just make H. and I want to rip our ears out. Five years old is a very up and down time for all of us—there are times when the growth is clear and the level of understanding is there, but there are times when he drops down practically into infant mode, and I personally just want to scream (and not infrequently that’s what I do, unfortunately.)

Good things: As I said, Finn is showing signs of growing up at times, which is so wonderful. It’s the kind of thing you can’t really explain, and the examples are subtle and I tend to forget them. Just little things he says or times when he keeps control over himself when I know he wouldn’t have a year ago. Even though he acts aggressively when he’s frustrated, I know that inside he’s a very nice person. He is very good to his sister—very considerate over all. He’s looking forward to sharing a room and bunk-beds with her, which somewhat surprised me.
He likes school and doing things that require thinking, like puzzle books, which is wonderful for me to see. He is looking forward to school, which again was a little bit surprising to me. I think he’s rather smart when it comes to numbers and patterns, personally, and he’s been coming quite a long way in terms of reading readiness, as I mentioned above.
I have to say, I think he is also very attached to me, for which I am grateful. I’m not always the best Mom (see above re: screaming), and it is sometimes surprising to me (this is the “surprised” blog entry, apparently) that he comes back and seems just as attached as before when we have a rough time in which hitting, screaming, scolding, pouting, etc. occur between us. He’s very loving, and I’m so glad of that.

Common sayings: “You’re kidding me, right?” and “Oh man” are older-kid phrases which have now found their way into his regular vocabulary. Those are the kinds of things that make you look down at your kid and say to yourself “when the heck did that happen?” (meaning growing up).

Kate:

Major news stories: I didn't write anything here in July, and I can't immediately think of anything major.

Current obsessions: Soggy, Lamby, and Paci (the three things she drags everywhere, if you let her); keeping up with Finn; singing (she sings in the tub… how wonderful!); doing everything herself (my mom used to warn me about this—“mother please, I’d rather do it myself!—and I truly didn’t believe her after having Finn, because it didn’t happen that way… well, now I believe).
Unfortunates: Katie loves the water and she loves baths, but she HATES getting water dumped on her head, and therefore she hates having her hair washed. I remember this with Finn, so I know it will pass, but for right now, it’s a bit frustrating. She’s also gotten a stronger temper lately, esp. with regard to bedtime. The screeching has reached a new peak when we turn off the light, leave the room, and go downstairs. On the plus side, it barely lasts 5 minutes. It may be difficult to transition her to the bunk-beds, though. She’s also much whinier lately, and at the same time, trying to assert her independence just about all of the time. These things don’t bother me too much, though. They feel like a phase, to me—but they bother H. a lot more (esp. when hitting is combined with them, which I can certainly understand).

Good things: Her singing is hands down one of my top “good things” these days. My absolute favorite is when she sings “15 animals” from the CD Philadelphia Chickens. I just love how she slurs along with the phrase, getting the sounds basically right but not completely intelligible, and then suddenly she hit a line with complete clarity: “… and my piglet known as, BOB OF COURSE!” Her talking is also still wonderful. I never get tired of it. I haven’t met a single person yet who has. Her curls are also something that I find just to die for! Not that this is quite the same as aspects of her behavior that are “good things”, but I couldn’t not mention them, because I could run my hands through those little curls at the base of her neck just FOREVER.

Common sayings: It’s just too hard to remember everything with this little chatterbox. Some phrases that she likely got from her brother, but which I think of more as her right now, include: “Moo-oommeeee” (the three-syllable version of “mommy”; if you’re a parent, you know exactly the sound of this one; and if you aren’t, I can’t describe it in text), “Cheese and crackers, man” (from Penguins of Madagascar).

Catching up

2010-02-28T12:12:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's been such a long time. Good intentions fallen by the wayside and all that, and 6+ months of no posting. In children's years, that's forever.

Finn:

Major news stories: Our little boy is a half-year through pre-school and we're already looking into our Kindergarten options. Pre-school has really gone very well. While he has his days of sulking about it, he seems to like it, enjoys his new friends, is willing to try things (like writing his name, I mean, not eating new things). While we still have to have our conference with the teacher, as far as I can tell, he's progressing fine and will be ready for Kindergarten next Fall. By the way, in case I haven't said it before, I think Finn has a real knack for numbers. It's just my own intuition, but he really seems to grasp them well. He clearly gets what they mean (i.e., not just rotely saying them), but he also seems (to me) to really get the general concepts of addition and subtraction. He's also been great at pattern recognition since he was pretty little (thank you I-Spy Computer Game). Just my little plug for Finn being a smarty-pants, even though I think he's a late bloomer in some ways (much like I was).

Current obsessions: Still Mario, and also anything Lego on the Wii. He's very into kittens; he likes to pretend he is one. This seems to be his way of "regressing"--essentially being more baby-like, while not actually pretending to be a baby (which we sort of discourage). He also wants to play dungeon, octopus tag, or hide-and-seek in the dark whenever anyone is willing to play with him (esp. me). I've been really busy at work lately, and I think he's missing me a lot (more than everyone else).

Unfortunates: Apart from the normally brother-sister spatting, Finn doesn't seem to have any major problem with Kate. The biggest unfortunate here is that he tends to carry on himself whenever he accidentally hurts Kate (as if he is the bigger victim of the situation). He does this when he accidentally hurts Daddy too. It seems to be about a fear of getting in trouble (best I can tell) and it really annoys Daddy a lot. He's also still got the capacity to be very broody, fusses about most kinds of food (although see below re: peas), and he says "No" and is sassy a lot more than he used to be. Sometimes he "meows" sassily (believe it or not). That REALLY ticks Daddy off.

Good things: He's been to the dentist again, which went great, and I only mention it because of a funny story. One night he had a bad dream that woke him up in the middle of the night (and he consequently woke me up). He couldn't tell me about the dream right then, but he said it was about the dentist. Uh-oh, I thought, I hope this isn't the start of a fear of going to the dentist. The next day it comes out... he had a dream where he had to win a game or he WOULDN'T be ALLOWED to go to the dentist, and that was the scary/bad part. HYSTERICAL! My son, the dentist-LOVER, apparently! While he still doesn't eat most things, he now eats frozen peas. We started having "pea races" between him and me, and that worked, although he still doesn't really like them. Now his favorite thing is to have a pea race with me while I'm still at work and they're eating their dinner early. Perfect opportunity for him to win uncontested!

Common sayings: Still says "constructions" a lot. I feel like such a shmuck--he's got lots of new sayings that I pick up from time to time that are so cute/funny, and I can't think of any of them. I'll have to post more quickly next time he says one. As I said above, he "meows" a lot.

Kate:

Major news stories: Too many to count. She's walking (has been since before the end of the summer), climbing, and talking, talking, talking!!! She is just such a smart cookie, I can't even describe it. She says so many amazing things that you wouldn't expect. Like yesterday, I offered to put her bib on her backwards, like a cape, and she said "Yeah!" nodding her head exuberantly as she often does. The she says "Now I'm super." That's right, I said, you're Super-Kate. I love the way she says "Yeah!" when she really wants or agrees with something because it's so full--she's so committed when she says it. She very clearly and appropriately speaks in full sentences, and if I can't do it anywhere else, at least I can brag my heart away here, because it's my blog! I just can't get over her!

Current obsessions: Talking all the time, taking bubble baths, trying to do the stairs standing up and holding the railing (NOT our favorite trend), "reading" books, playing hide-and-go seek (esp. with the whole family), "marching" on Mommy & Daddy's bed, pointing out the kitties wherever they go, and VEHEMENTLY opposing anything to do with bed time.

Unfortunates: See above re: bed time. She's so hard to put down, and is a light sleeper once she is down. She doesn't systematically wake up in the middle of the night anymore, but we go through weeks when she pops up (like this week). She's still pretty stubborn, and she likes to cross her arms and go "Hmmph!" when she's upset (which I have to say is so completely cute, but we never give in to it). She can be very polite, but is definitely in the "me", "mine", "gimme" stage. When she asks for something impolitely, if you say to her "How are we supposed to ask?" she says "gimme gimme gimme" in the absolute cutest voice ever with a twinkle in her eye. I can't help but laugh. But I don't give her whatever it is... I know that would really come back to haunt me later.

Good things: She can still be shy at first, but she's much more quickly acclimated to other people now, and she talks with just about anyone, which is so gratifying from the Mommy perpective. She knows certain people's names and brings them up in general conversation (e.g., Seth and Sharon; Tommy and Seth; Meg and Mel), which is really nice to see. She clearly wants and needs both me and Daddy, which is nice. It would be so easy to feel left out, given that I work so much, if she were to task for Daddy anytime there was a boo-boo or something, but she really asks for both of us at different times (and always asks for the other one, if the one she is with is saying no about something or threatening to take her to bed).

Common sayings: This is a hard one, because she says so much now. She still says "Sim" instead of "Finn" most of the time. She loves to ask for donuts (as does Finn). She calls chocolate milk "chocolate milk" (which is only odd because the rest of my family very consistently calls it "co-co-moo". She copies Finn in saying "Moommeeey" with the cutest little lilt to it when she's feeling silly.

The words and phrases are one of the best parts of being a parent for me, and I'm really going to try and put more of them down more quickly. Oh, I have one that I don't think I ever posted, even though it started late last Fall at some point. This is based on the knock-knock joke I invented:

Mommy: Knock-knock

Finn: Who's there?

Mommy: Finn

Finn: Finn who?

Mommy: Finn-ish your dinner, Finn! (we were eating dinner at the time)

Kate's version:

Katie: Knock-knock

Mommy: Who's there?

Katie: Finn

Mommy: Finn who?

Katie: EAT YOUR DINNER, MOMMY! (said very demandingly!)

That's one of my long-standing favorites, so I had to make sure to write it down.

These pics are from right around V's day:

Update - we have lift-off!

2009-07-08T13:50:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-06-01T13:34:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-04-29T11:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-03-01T08:57:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-18T14:56:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-01-16T12:14:00.000-08:00

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.

I don't easily get on to post lately...

2008-10-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

Finn has lately taken to adding the word "easily" to a lot of sentences, and in a couple of different ways. It can mean that the thing really is difficult to do--"It doesn't easily come off." (about one's pants, say)--or it's really just not a thing I want to do--"I don't easily do that, Mommy" (about eating dinner, using the potty, etc.). It's quite endearing. Makes it a bit more difficult to say "Sit down and eat your dinner, kiddo!"

By the way, a week or so ago, miracle of miracles...A couple of peas passed through those lips, through those most sealed of gates when it comes to all things vegetable and fruit (excluding juice). And I mean voluntarily! I'm not saying it's happened again since then, but perhaps things are looking up!

I recently looked back at old pics of Finn and noticed that, relative to what Kate looks like, he seemed much further developed at 6 months. I don't just mean bigger... he was certainly that, but I look at how much longer his hair was and even his face seemed less little-babyish. My friends say it's just a second-baby perceptual thing, but I don't know. I'll have to get a very recent pic of Kate onto my work computer and then I'll post them side by side for comparison. Maybe I'll get to that later today.

Keeping it equal

2008-10-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics of Finn. I wouldn't want to look back and find that I had posted Kate's pics and then not found the time to put up a few for Finn, so here are a couple; the frontal view pic is fairly recent (3 years, 4 months).

On that subject--how to keep it equal--Christmas is coming up, and while this year it won't be such a big concern, it is in the back of my mind that somehow I want to find a way to keep Christmas (presents and such) fairly equal for my two kids without (and this is the key and the point of difficulty) making myself insane at the same time. I'm certainly not planning to worry about the actual dollars and cents of it, but on some level I do feel that fairness should come in here somewhere. On the other hand, I don't want to feel compelled to run out on Christmas eve some years in order to find that last little thing that will make the two sides even. An interesting quandary...

My first blog pics, and Kate's first rice cereal

2008-10-09T19:53:00.000-07:00

So here's the first (well, actually the second, but the result was largely the same) foray into solids for Kate! Rice cereal went down nicely. No particularly funny reactions, but then again, this stuff is about the most tastelest thing on the planet. She liked playing with it in her mouth and pushing some of it back out. As you can see, she also decided she wants to be a "big girl" and do it herself.

Sorry the pics are little blurry... we're having camera troubles. But yay me, I figured out how to add pictures (yes, even I can eventually figure out what the little picture-icon button at the top of the screen means). Next step... figure out how to get everything laid out nicely on the page. A task for another night.

2008-10-08T06:41:00.000-07:00

Finn told me about a dream he had the other night that apparently involved pirates and falling into the sky. The funniest part was the end. This was apparently a "bad" dream, not a "good" dream, and I was trying to figure out when it happened, so I asked him "Was this why you were crying when you woke up from nap today?" His response--"Yes...(pause, clearly changing his mind)...no, I wouldn't cry from that dream, Mommy." Ah, the inner workings of the 3-year-old mind.

Kind of going along with the above, one of Finn's favorite things to do these days is to tell stories. His favorite topic is Mario. Yes, I know... my 3-year-old does play Mario games... he's catching one of his parents' main vices. I spend a lot of time feeling ashamed and/or apologetic about this, but I'm not feeling up to that right now...so sue me. While there are a lot of things I don't like about his playing these games, let me tell you what I do like. His memory and/or his communication about his memory has been developing amazingly through this. He likes to go over the story line and tell you all about the little things that Mario did in great, great detail. A lot of the time this will include the person playing the game (e.g., "Mommy tried to climb the roof, but she couldn't do it." or "Daddy swam through the tunnel and he went on the blocks and he got the star."). Other times he just talk about Mario as the main character. He's so eager to tell his stories that he's started trying to get the attention of other kids his age. It's the first completely self-initiated non-parallel kind of play that I've really seen in him.

The other thing I like about it is that it emphasizes the importance of sequencing. You've got to break the block, then raise the water level, then swim down into the hole. You can't do those things in a different order. A lot of life has this kind of sequencing in it (e.g., you have to put your arms into the sleeves and then button the shirt), and I think it's really neat to see him picking that up. See, now, don't you feel better about all this game playing. I know I do. For now.

We have started using a chart system with stickers to try and limit the TV/computer time for Finn. He gets a certain amount of time per day (broken up into half-hour blocks) and he puts a star sticker into the grid when he uses up one of the blocks. Then, once he's filled them all in for the day, he doesn't get any more (no, I'm not going to say how much time it is total; it hits too close to my shame/guilt button). We're trying to use stickers to reward potty behavior, too. So far, not much progress on that end (haha) and I think, lately, a little regression away from the ultimate goal. Sigh.

On the Kate front, things are well. She's still super vocal, chatting all the time with whoever will sit with her, or with her blue froggy (seems to be the forerunner in the favorite-toy race), or just by herself. Once she starts talking, we are definitely in trouble. She's just about exactly 6 months now, so we should be starting some solids (rice cereal, etc.) very soon. Stay tuned!

First teeth and more

2008-09-21T06:33:00.000-07:00

Kate just got her first 2 teeth. Both of my kids have been early teethers. It's such a vindication when teeth first come in. In my experience, when this happens, the baby has been fussing more than normal for a few days at least, and possibly drooling a lot and chewing on his/her fingers. You've been telling yourself "Maybe he/she's teething" without any real sense of whether that explains the extra long time it takes to put him down to bed or the sudden bursts of crying when nothing apparent has happened to her. So when teeth finally show up, you silently say to yourself "YES!" and then go on with the rest of your business.

An extraordinary event occurred yesterday morning. Finn had blood drawn without a single fuss or tear or fidget or anything! It was miraculous. He and I both needed to have blood drawn, so it made sense to me to get it all done at once. I had mine done first, naturally, and I'm really pretty good with giving blood, so I tried to get him to watch the fact that I was not bothered by it. I was much more tense, myself, when it was his turn. I consider myself a pretty relaxed mom when it comes to the bumps and bangs of childhood, but I was honestly dreading the idea of sitting through a 3-year-old giving blood.

For Finn's turn, he sat on my lap. They tied the blue rubber thingy around his arm and asked him to squeeze his hand really tight. I had him hold my other hand and squeeze that really tight, too. An interesting fact about children (mine at least) is that they are better at doing things with their whole body rather than just part-way--better at squeezing both hands than just one. This fact was illustrated for us during swimming lessons. The difficulty our 3-year-old had with moving his hands at a slow crawl-pace while kicking his legs quickly was comical. As soon as the kicking began, the arms would speed right up to match the legs. Really, though, we're all familiar with this phenomenon, even as adults--think of the pat your head and rub your tummy scenario, which is pretty hard at first for everyone.

Anyway, he squeezed his hands and he watched the needle the whole time. Just like Mommy--I hate it when someone tells me not to look at the needle. Thanks for the tip, but I know how I want to do it. I am absolutely fine having a needle as long as I can watch the whole process.

So the needle goes in, and you could practically hear all four adults in the room holding our breath, waiting... and nothing happened. No movement, no noise--no crying, no flinch... nothing! For a second, the blood wasn't coming up through the tube, and I saw the phlebotomist just barely moving the needle. I know we were both thinking how much we didn't want to have to do the stick again... and then next thing you knew, the blood was flowing through. I said to Finn, "Look, there it goes. That's your blood." He said "Yeah", and that was all there was to it. When we were all done, Finn had a whole bunch of stickers (they gave him 6 or 7, I think because they were so happy that it was an easy job), and a bandaid on his arm to match Mommy's.

Wow... I can't imagine it will ever happen so smoothly again!

One of the lesser-known side-effects of potty training...

2008-09-13T13:13:00.000-07:00

is when your son says to your hubby while he (hubby) is on the toilet: "Good job, Daddy! I'm so proud of you!" Who knows, possibly when hubby gets much older, he'll appreciate that kind of encouragement!

One of Finn's very common word errors, which he has had for a while and doesn't seem to be getting past yet, is to say "They don't rhyme!" when something doesn't match. It can be a rhyme-related mismatch, or something completely non-vocal, so that the idea of rhyming doesn't fit at all. Sometimes he even says it when he just means that something isn't right. For example, if I say: "Does the kitty wear a hat?" (while holding a hat on the kitty), Finn is liable to say, "Mommy, that doesn't rhyme!"

Kate discovered an important new fact about the world on Friday. She very distinctly told us that "Ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya." I'm so glad to have her here to tell me these things. How else would I ever know?!

Seeing things

2008-08-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

Finn asked me to use my finger to make the popping noise on the inside of my cheek. His response when I did it: "I see that sound!"

One of Finn's most used phrases: "Oh, I didn't see that before," which half of the time translates into "Oh, you're showing me something brand new and really interesting" and the other half of the time translates into "Oh, it was there all along but I didn't see it."

Theory of mind... here we come!

2008-08-24T08:15:00.001-07:00

Today I got some nice, explicit evidence that Finn is getting theory of mind. Theory of mind is a really cool cognitive (or even social cognitive) ability. It has to do with being able to understand that other people out there have minds, just like you do, but that their minds are separate from yours. Young children don't have this yet, as shown by the fact that they will often assume that you know what they know, even if it's pretty clear you don't. Like they might ask you who gave them the cookie, even though you weren't there when it was given to them and, if asked, they would correctly be able to say that you weren't there. Still, they assume you must know, because they know (why kids constantly ask questions that they already know the answer to is an entirely different question and a complete mystery, to me anyway!).

So this morning I was sitting at the dining room table with Finn. We were both eating breakfast, and the TV was on in the other room (sad to say, but this is a frequent occurrence during our meals). The way our living room/dining room is laid out, there is a very open (but not completely nonexistent) wall between the two, and from Finn's seat you can see the TV but from my seat there is wall/closet in the way. In the context of talking about what was on, Finn said to me, "I can see the TV, but you can't."

"YES! THAT'S RIGHT!" I said back to him. Ok, so maybe I didn't actually scream it, but I'm sure I said it with gushing enthusiasm and pride, because I recognized right away that a cool new connection was charging itself up in his head.

Oh, and can I also mention that I am unabashedly proud of the fact that Finn knows what a brain is and where it goes. I ask him to show people (Grandma and Grandpa, for example) where his brain is, and he patiently points yet again to his head. That's MY boy!

Man, my kids must think I'm absolutely insane sometimes! Oh well.

Motor oddities

2008-08-22T06:53:00.000-07:00

When Finn was a baby, he used to do this funny movement with both of his hands. It was sort of a spastic wiggling of the fingers (kind of like "jazz hands", if you're familiar with that reference). I can't remember exactly when we first noticed it, but it was a feature of his baby life for quite a while. We used to call it his "schizophrenia" hands--no disrespect meant to people with schizophrenia, but it looked a lot like the hand movements (or you might call them tics) that Brad Pitt used when playing a person with schizophrenia in 12 Monkeys. We wondered time and time again what on earth the movements were about. Very few people had ever seen that kind of movement before on other babies. My sister-in-law once said that one of her girls had done something similar, but I don't know if that was really the same persistent behavior or just a one time thing in that case.

I had one theory about what it might be. As adults, our brains are organized so that the right half of our brain controls the left half of our body, and vice versa. However, I discovered that in babies this kind of brain organization is not set up initially. In fact, it apparently takes about a year and a half or so for that organization to set in, so I wondered if Finn's funny hand movements might have to do with the two sides of the brain competing for control over his hands until the organization was fully worked out. It sounds like a perfectly good explanation to me... only trouble is, why would that just be true for Finn and not everyone else? I guess we'll never know. He eventually moved past it and now his hand movements are perfectly normal--in fact, I would even venture to say that he had very good fine motor control of his fingers pretty early on. That's in stark contrast to his gross motor movement... he didn't start walking until 18 months! He barely crawled before that, too. One day he just seemed to decide that walking would be a good thing to start now, and off he went.

Kate (now 4 1/2 months) has started doing something interesting with her hand movements, too, but it's something more common (at least in my experience... both my kids did it, and I think I've seen other babies do it too). When she's nursing, she will sometimes sort of flail her arms around. It's not completely wild, but also not a very controlled movement, and she has some force behind it (but not so much that it's disruptive to her nursing). What I find interesting about it is how it ties in with the nursing. It almost seems like it's an expression of effort... like maybe there are times when her sucking is not working as much as she'd like and she's putting her whole body into the activity. I can't explain it much better than that, but it's really interesting to watch. She's not distressed, but she sometimes seems to be working hard, like maybe she just wants to get done nursing faster than she is really able to, so she's trying to move the process along. Either that or she thinks my breasts are bongo drums.

She is old enough now that she would often rather be paying attention to the world instead of nursing. This happens to every nursing mom I know--she wants to eat, but she also wants to look around, so your nipple becomes the key object in a biological taffy pull. Ouch! Not fun! But they look up at you with such pleasant wonder in their eyes, you can't really be annoyed at them. Score one for Kate and for all babykind!

Visions of sugar donuts

2008-08-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

My folks are visiting this week. When they come to visit, they stay in a hotel just a few miles north of our house, and there is a Dunkin Donuts along the way to our house from the hotel. It's been something of a tradition for them to stop and pick up donuts on the way to our house in the morning, maybe not every day they're here, but often once or twice. Finn definitely associates their visits with getting donuts (one of the benefits of a being a grandparent is being associated with sugary goodness). Today we got a little window into the way Finn sees the world. It was time for his nap, and Grandma was also going to go back to the hotel to take a nap for a bit. When his daddy told him on the way up to bed that Grandma was going back to the hotel, apparently Finn said "The donut hotel?"

Now I'm having visions of a hotel made out of giant donuts.

It occurs to me that Finn's perspective must be more complicated than this, because he knows full well where the Dunkin Donuts is. He tends to point it out every time we drive by it on the way to the grocery store.

-"The donut store!"
-"Uh-huh, that's right." Thanks kiddo; very considerate of you to point it out to us... again... for our own sakes, no doubt.

One thing old and one thing new

2008-08-12T05:15:00.001-07:00

As a cognitive psychologist, I love listening to the language quirks in Finn's everyday chatter. He makes the kinds of classic mistakes when talking that, when you know what you're looking for, you can see are signs of his language skills getting better. The errors themselves show that his language is developing and becoming more like that of an adult. For example, he tends to over-extend his past tense "ed" rule. One of my favorites is when he is playing a video game where his character gets knocked over or out by another character he says "He falled me down." This is two errors in one: 1) the error of saying "falled" instead of "fell", which means he is internalizing the rule about past tense and extends it to irregular verbs that it doesn't belong with (some cognitive psychologists don't believe kids have an actual internal rule, though, but it's too complicated to go into the actual theory here... and I suppose anyone who's not a dorky cognitive psychologist, like myself, wouldn't find it very interesting. It really is a cool theory, though!), and 2) the error of using "fall" as a transitive verb (I don't actually know what this means linguistically). He makes the "ed" error with some other words, but I find this phrase the cutest. He's usually not upset-sometimes he says it with a bit of resignation, but always with a perfectly calm acceptance of that aspect of the game.

That was the old... he's been doing that for a while. Here's the new. The other day Finn was able to, for the first time I've been able to catch it, really explain how he was feeling deep down in a way that didn't just rely on a standard label, like "I'm sad" or "I'm mad". He tends not to be able to explain why he gets upset. The actual process of getting upset sort of short-circuits his thinking, I believe, so that by the time you get him calmed down, he doesn't have the ability to tap into what the problem had been at that time, at least not in words. Well, the other day Finn and his daddy went to the basketball court and brought his little basketball with them. When they came back, Finn was very upset (I could hear him crying about a block and a half away, since the front door was open). His daddy was also very upset; they were both clearly very frustrated, and it escalated into a time-out for hitting or some such. At any rate, I didn't get a chance to talk to Finn about it right away, but his daddy told me the gist of the story:

They had been playing basketball at the court, which had turned into Hubby shooting the ball and Finn fetching it after (Finn has little patience with shooting the ball himself for very long since he can't come close to the basket, so he likes to watch his daddy shoot). Then they started kicking the ball around. They were playing a soccer-esque game of kick, where they would race to the ball together, each trying to reach it first. Hubby would reach it first most of the time and kick it away from Finn, at which point Finn would laugh and run after it again. It was a perfectly happy game, and there was no gradual sign of Finn becoming upset. Suddenly he just sat down and wouldn't play and got sulky and eventually started to cry (or maybe that didn't start until after Hubby picked him up and started to carry him home). The key points being that Finn seemed to be enjoying the game of kick even though it essentially was like a game of "keep-away" from him, and that he didn't gradually melt down but suddenly was upset.

When I heard the story, I suspected that Finn had been frustrated because his daddy kept kicking the ball away from him. Hubby is not really into the "let him win because he's little" philosophy, but I should also say that I'm sure he was right that Finn seemed to be having a perfectly happy time throughout all of this. It wasn't a case of daddy being a meanie... it's just that Finn didn't realize he was frustrated until it was too late. I have that kind of frustration/anger myself sometimes; it boils up so gradually that you don't even notice it until you're ready to breath fire.

Anyway, typically when I would ask Finn about something like this ("What happened, sweetie? What made you feel frustrated or sad?"), he can't really give me an in-depth sense of his own feelings or thoughts. He usually applies a patented label, or can only pseudo-confirm or refute statements I make myself--like I might say, "Did you get frustrated when the ball kept rolling away?" and he would nod or say "uh-huh". I call this "pseudo"-confirmation because Finn is still inclined to say yes to all of your statements to him, even when they don't really apply to the situation. But I thought I should try to ask him what happened anyway, and this is what he said:

"I didn't kick the ball. Daddy kicked it 2 times, and he kicked it 4 times, and I didn't kick it."

I was floored! First of all, this was several hours later, and Finn doesn't usually retain events in much detail for very long. Secondly, this was an incredibly potent and easily understood rendition of what must have been going on in his head at the time. Nobody asked him specifically what he was thinking at the moment (or if his daddy did ask, I'm sure he was too upset to convey it), so he was telling me now what had been in his head earlier. For some 3-year-olds this might not be a big deal, but Finn doesn't communicate his frustrations verbally very well, so this was really a break-through! I was so amazed and really quite excited at the development that I think this must reflect on his part. I didn't press him further because I didn't want him to feel upset again, and really he had told me everything I needed to know. But I did sneak over to Hubby, who was laying down in the other room, and told him exactly what Finn had said--not to make a big deal of the incident itself, but to show him how Finn was able to get the emotion across.

Funny things

2008-08-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

Things that Finn finds funny:

Standing on his head or being held upside down. I wonder what the biological basis is for this... it seems almost universal that being upside down is funny for kids.

Playing "squeeze" (a game invented by Grandma, I believe) - Here are the rules of the current instatiation of the game: First, Finn sits or stands behind you as you sit on a sofa (you have to lean forward to let him in). Then, you sit back and smoosh him against the back of the sofa and say "Squeeeeeeeeze." The first version of the game was just a hugging game, but this is what it has evolved into.

Making funny faces, including "smooshy face" (where you push your hands in on your face to make your mouth all smooshed up). Other versions: "funny face" (which involves squeezing your cheeks between your fingers and thumbs), "clown face" (otherwise known by daddy/hubby as "crazy clown face", which creeps him out totally, but Finn loves it), and googly-eyes (which involves making a surprised expression and then rolling your eyes around and around (a la James the engine, from Thomas and friends).

Readings stories or reciting nursery rhymes and replacing random words (usually nouns) with the word "Chicken". For example: Row, row, row your boat, gently down the chicken

The knock-knock banana/orange joke. For those of you who are sadly uninformed:

>Knock-knock
-Who's there?
>Banana
-Banana who?
>Knock-knock
-Who's there?
>Banana
-Banana who?
>Knock-knock
-Who's there?
>Orange?
-Orange who?
>Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

You'd think nobody had ever invented a funnier joke. Finn can only handle playing the door-answerer part, but he puts the appropriate inflection in to every line. He gets more and more pretend-exasperated as you go (he starts to get a little over-exasperated if you do too many "bananas" - two is enough; any more and he seems a bit thrown off). His exasperation hits its peak at "Orange who?" which he says in a really funny, drawn-out, high-pitched questioning voice. It's the same tone he uses when he says "Cats?!" (read the previous post--none of us could remember exactly how the Cats thing started, though).

Finn will often talk in the most amazing voice when he's amused-- it's like you can hear pure laughter channeling through his voice; his enjoyment is so raw and untainted. I wish I could bottle it... it would be the new fountain of youth, I think.

I also wish I could post a picture that would match the laughing side of Finn, but as I look through all my pics, I realize that we never capture him honestly laughing. It's always a posed smile. He's perfectly happy smiling for the camera, but it's just not the same. We have a number of pics of him crying though. What a shame that it's so easy to capture real sadness and so hard to capture real happiness with a camera.

2008-08-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

Ok... this one won't really mean much of anything except to myself, my hubby, Finn, and my bro and his family... but just so I don't give myself the chance to forget...

CATS?!

Just time for a quick post

2008-08-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

In line with my resolution, I will sometimes post really quick things, because if I wait until I have lots of time, it just may not happen.

First thing... I actually lied a little bit, unintentionally of course. I did have another blog once, but...1) I barely used it, so it doesn't count, and 2) It is associated in my mind with some unpleasant disagreements with my bro... so perhaps I repressed it. At any rate, I still feel very awkward and behind the curve when it comes to writing in this thing, and it definitely feels out of place to say "blogging" (or any other verb derivative of the word blog) in reference to myself. So I proclaim myself a blogging virgin despite my previous experience.

Second, and more importantly, adding some more memories.

The other day when we were all driving somewhere together and my husband and I were nitpicking and bitching at each other for perfectly stupid reason, I'm sure, Finn piped up from the back seat and said: "Mommy... Daddy... relax!" It was one of the most hysterical things I've ever heard, this little 3-year-old, capable of throwing one heck of a tantrum at the drop of a hat, telling us to relax. It worked immediately, too, because we were both so thrown and it was so funny that we couldn't be pissy with each other any more. He still says it occasionally; luckily not too often, because I think the tension-breaking effect would go away if he said it too much.

I'm going to try and remember the older memories from Finn's 3 years, if I can. It's hard. They fall away so fast. Here's one of the first talking memories I have for Finn... when he was only just starting to talk--only had about 5 or 10 words, so maybe about 20 months, give or take a month or two (it's so bad that I can't even remember those kinds of details)--Finn was in his car seat and was saying "Ba-oh" over and over again. I was in the passenger seat, and I turned around and said "Where, Finn? I don't see a ball!" and I looked and looked and couldn't find the ball he was trying to tell me about. Finally, I reached my hand around on the floor behind my back seat and pulled out an empty water bottle. It took me a second longer, and then I realized that he was saying "bottle" the whole time. That was a cool memory, because it was the first time that he was really meaning something very specific and it was a persistent meaning... he was sure there was a "ba-oh" there, and if only mommy could figure it out she could confirm that indeed that "ba-oh" was right there. Luckily, I did figure it out! Language development rocks!

First post ever

2008-07-31T18:26:00.000-07:00

I've never had a blog before. Sure, I've read tons of them... maybe not as many as some, but I'm not completely unexposed. Truth be told, I just don't feel like I have time for a blog. Even now I really should go home in the next 3 minutes (I'm at work... the relevance of this will become clear... soon... or at least eventually). So what am I doing here?

Here's the thing. I've got friends who have blogs on which they post the tiniest minutia of their children's lives... yes, this is going to be that kind of blog. I'm worried, really honestly worried, that pretty soon I'm not going to remember the tiniest minutia of my children's lives. So here it begins.

Meet the kids:

Finn - 3 years old as of June. Rambunctious, bundle of energy; sweet natured one moment and melting into a volcanic pool of 3-ness the next; so sensitive in some ways... so much like a brick wall in others. A complete merging of me and my husband; not clearly looking like one or the other of us and sharing both good and bad traits from both of us. He's the one I feel guilty about. He's 3 and already I've let so many little memories slip away. I hereby state my resolution to get at least some of those little tidbits down on "paper" so that I can look back on them later (3 weeks later, 15 months later, a lifetime later).

Kate - my sweetest of sweet little not quite 4-month-old. From day 1 I have been wrapped, and I mean seriously WRAPPED, around this little girl's finger. Her little blue (I hope to stay) eyes stare right through me and into me and bring every bit of my deepest desire for a strong, unbreakable, indescribable mother-daughter relationship burbling to the surface. I don't ever want to forget these first baby conversations that we have... I could talk for hours and hours with her if the rest of the world would just leave us in peace. Not to happen...

So my story is that I am a full-time career mom, with a stay-at-home husband, and I never have enough time for anything--not work, not my husband, not my kids, not myself. But so many of these demands on my time won't be changing so much over the next few years that I won't even recognize them down the road. Finn and Kate, on the other hand, will. So here it is, my resolution...

I WILL write down some of the little things that make life with kids worth while.
I WILL note some of the cute little phrases and doings that bring happiness to each day (and help combat the meltdowns).
I WILL put some pictures up (if I can figure out how the heck to do that... in my copious free time).

And I WILL prioritize all of these things enough to do them now and again (hopefully more now than again)... starting... NOW!

Finn (3 yrs and almost 2 months): He doesn't want me to leave for work (and understandable reaction to the fact that he's now sharing mommy and daddy with baby sister Kate, and I've been starting to get back into the office more frequently. His first response (upon seeing me get geared up to leave one day) : "Mommy, don't go out the door!" (meaning the front door)
My solution--go out the back door, naturally
His response, the next time--"Mommy, don't go out ANY doors!" (standing with one hand extending out in the direction of each door (both with hands held up to mean "stop").
My response--"So, what... I should go out a window?"
Now, Finn's response everytime I try to leave for work... "Mommy, don't go out ANY doors... go out a window." He's dying to see me go out a window. Seriously. One ofthese days I'm afraid I'm just going to have to do it.

Kate (3 1/2 months, or just over): She's begun laughing this past week, and it's the real magical kind of laughing that is entirely visual, entirely cerebral (not from being tickled or otherwise touched). She laughed at Finn standing in the middle of the room spinning his stuffed bunny around in the air. She laughs for daddy and Finn more than for me, but I'm not the slightest bit offended because: a) I'm the one who gets most of the long, deep conversations, and b) I get to hear her laugh!

More to come!