41 weeks

Two days in a row! Lucky you! Someday I'll have the chutzpah to try the "post a picture every day" blogging goal (Melinda, you are my inspiration!). But for now you'll have to make do with weekends.

Jack was a whirling dervish today. Dancing and singing and this evening he ran 21 loops around the downstairs. We counted. In the midst of his dervish-ness, though, he was sweet and snuggly and lovey, to us and to his sister. I simply love watching him play with her, give her positive attention. It makes me think this whole crazy venture of parenting two will pay some dividends in the end...

We got a new, large-piece-of-plastic toy for Ives at the resale yesterday, a little "doorway" of a little house, with a gazillion different light-up interactive features. She loves it and so does Jack. Today he enjoyed delivering the mail and changing the day/night wheel so he could pretend to sleep and then wake up. He and Ivy spent some time playing together, facing each other in the doorway. Ivy enjoyed imitating him and laying down when he did, so that their heads were touching. She would just giggle and giggle and rub her head on his and it was So. Stinking. Cute.

We were too busy watching this scenario unfold, and then being ordered to lay down and go to sleep, ourselves, to get any pictures. But here are the sweet siblings later in the day:


And here is the girlie at 41 weeks:



Our mini-spring has left us; a delightful wintry mix is coming down outside and covering the world in slush. Sigh. Stay warm, all...

Saturday sunshine....

Seems I am doing a weekly update these days. Life, and indeed the very darlings whose lives are chronicled herein, seem to get in the way of posting any more often.

The past few days we have been gifted by a mini-spring of sorts, a burst of sunshine and rather incredible warmth, with temperatures in the 60's. The snow, the unbroken blanket of white over our property, is gone. I don't miss sliding my way to my car over mountains of ice in our driveway, but I do miss the clarity and softness of the white. Muddy dead grass and litter...ah, the signs of spring. Today was cold again, and windy, but the glorious sun was with us still, so it was a good day.

The Spring resale events have started up again, so if anyone needs me on a Saturday morning you'll know where to look. Had a lovely time perusing kids clothes and toys, without the kids (thanks Gram!) and then having coffee with Melinda and her babes. This afternoon, Mike came over to play Magic with Nat and we spent quite a bit of time just, well, sitting around. Jack loves to "help" play magic, and is learning to recognize some of the words on the cards. Turns out the dining room is a decent place to let Ivy wander about, so I was able to play with her and chat a bit with the adults, too. We closed the day with "breakfast for dinner" in front of the TV and now, a few episodes of Lost.

Yep, a good day.

Quick updates:

The girl can now pull up to stand, holding on to something, and this is now her prime goal in life. She particularly enjoyed holding on to the stepstool and Jack's chair. She is also very interested in string. She follows us from room to room with her little quick-step crawl. She claps and waves and is very intentional with her communication these days. She gives hugs now-- most often to the dog, whom she adores. She has slept through the night 3 times this week.

The boy is a talking dynamo and is recognizing more and more letters and words. Making Valentines with him, for his preschool class party on Thursday, he identified the first letter I should write for every kid's name. He also helped to spell out "I love you" each time (which was the message he had me pen, in glitter, on the inside of each Valentine). He is exceedingly articulate and increasingly polite, unless he is pushing our buttons, a twinkle in his eye. Today his favorite game has been to say "I love you more!", "No, I love YOU more" back and forth with me. His hair is way too long and he looks rather like a Q-tip these days with his little string bean self under that big head of hair and I sure do love him.

Jack, "playing Magic" (he and Daddy were sorting a deck of cards) The thing on his face? A Transformer sticker he's worn for almost 2 days. Quality parenting at work!


He "reads" the word "Artifact" on the cards with that name, sounding it out the way Daddy did for him. "Ar, tih, "F", Act"

Still won't feed herself a cheerio, though any small item found on the floor is fair game. As are baby Mum Mum crackers.

The girls, hanging out in the dining room. We have left the table pushed into the corner since our Valentine's Soup Supper. It is refreshing to have a room with some floor space!

Ivy loves Corydon...

This is where she spent about 10 minutes while we made supper...


Making pancakes for dinner with Daddy..



41 week pictures coming soon!

40 weeks!

Baby girl keeps on growing up! Her new trick this week is standing up-- holding on to things, of course. And we stay close because her other new trick is falling over and otherwise running her head into things. Seriously. This morning she bumped her head on things about 6 times in the span of ten minutes. May need to get her a helmet.


Have to resort to a lot of tricks to keep that "40 weeks" card in the picture...

Here's the boy being perfect in his playroom. After being a bit of a maniac all morning, he suddenly was very quiet. We looked around for him and this is what we found...



Later in the day, we found him like this...



He's special.

9 months

Out as long as she was in, now. Ivy is 9 months and 2 days old. Crawling all over and trying to climb onto furniture, and this evening she moved a small chair to the side in order to get to the electrical outlet behind it. Yep, we're in trouble with this one.
Here are her 9 month stats from her appointment on Tuesday:
Height: 28.5in (90%)
Weight: 18 lbs 8 oz (50%)
Head: 16.7in (20%)

Pretty consistent with last time. She continues to be a tall thing with a petite head. Luckily she's growing in a pretty good crop of hair to help balance things out a bit. Her flat spot is still there but Dr. Mann assured us it should resolve at some point.

Other 9 month news: She jabbers lots of sounds and giggles and laughs and squeals at all sorts of things. She loves silly noises, when we shake our heads, and when things fall down. She scrinches her nose and crinkles up her eyes when she's particularly pleased. She's ticklish and loves being thrown in the air. The higher, the better. She thinks it's hilarious when we stick out our tongues. She bounces to music, in perfect time. She bounces, actually, to just about anything. She gets very annoyed if I do not immediately pick her up when I get home in the evenings. And when I do pick her up, she buries her head in my chest for a quick hug, then bounces in my arms a bit, then promptly turns away to look for more action... She still loves to eat but is developing more preferences these days. These tend toward fruit, buttered bread, multigrain cheerios and pasta, and away from broccoli, cauliflower, and potatoes. She can chew just about anything with her two little teeth. (Who needs more than two teeth anyways??) This evening she was signing "more" for popcorn. She is sleeping a bit better (last night she slept from 11:30-7:30am. I can live with that) and is even napping in her crib sometimes. She prefers naps in the carseat; we are thankful for the loan of the larger Graco seat that lets us all benefit from this sleep-crutch just a bit longer.

As for the boy: No milestone birthdays this week but always plenty to say about him.

Quotes of the week-

"Let's play Jack in the hampster!!" -- requesting one of his favorite games wherein he pretends to be laundry in a basket, or hamper. Otherwise known as a hampster, in Jack-ese. Totally not correcting him on this one.

"Hold on, my knee is doing it's thing..." -- accompanied by a perfect, perfect imitation of the leg movements Nat does when his knee "does it's thing" and goes out on him.

He is startling independent in so many, many ways. He puts in and takes out his DVD's and always puts them away when done. He can choose and start and pause videos and minimize his windows on the computer. He took himself upstairs to use the toilet today and, finding the lights off, found his flashlight in his room and went ahead and used the potty all on his own. Comes downstairs, flashlight in tow, announcing, "I just went to the potty upstairs, where it's dark." He still likes the hall light and glow man on when he sleeps at night, though. He continues to emerge into letter awareness and can identify the letters that start a variety of words. Today he drew a bit of a representational picture, which he described as a bear in a cave. Its a really cute, very round bear, tucked neatly in an archway of sorts, with a face made of a bunch of dots. He seems to lean towards pointilism in his artistic style. His latest Hot Wheel acquisition (and thus his new favorite) is named Snoofy Snoofy Snoofy Nee. Don't you forget the "Nee" part when you talk about the car. He'll let you know! He is silly and wiggly and serious about chocolate. He's pretty great these days, that boy.

And now-- some webcam captured, unedited video craziness for you. Pardon the messy house but hey, this is what life with two kids under 3 looks like, people.

Playing with blocks this evening.


Ivy's first real crawling attempts, a couple of days ago..

39 weeks

We celebrated 39 weeks yesterday with a trip to the Botanical Gardens. We wandered around in the tropics and discussed concepts of climate and geographic location with Jack, while it continued to snow outside. (We got about 3 more inches yesterday... it is so beautiful and makes me long for the days when Nat and I could run off to ski any time we wished...)

A nice view of my new glasses, for you...


Sad news at the garden is that the train table is gone. But, the boy got over his disappointment by playing a recycling/sorting game with me. "We-cycling!" he shouting jubilantly. Here are a couple of other Jack-isms from our morning yesterday, just to give you a little taste of what life is like around here:

"Apparently, mommy, I only like the chocolate." Stated with great seriousness as he picked the chocolate chips out of his granola bar.

"I'd much rather you clean with me and Ivy clean with Daddy," was his response when we asked him who he'd like to mop with. *By the way, he loves mopping. Really he does.

"Ooh! Look! A secret ninja route!" pointing to a path through the snow. I just love so much that he knows how to use that phrase.

Here is wiggle pants at 39 weeks.


She is a mobile girl. Not fast, yet. Which is nice. Gives us time to gather up paper scraps and tiny toys and goodness knows what other crap is on our floor, before she gets there. Her new thing is to pull up onto her knees. On everything. She's not too good at staying up-- yet. But she's getting better, quickly. Watch out, world...

Friday...

and TGIF indeed. Fridays come around again so fast these days. And that is a good thing and a bad thing all at the same time, you know?

Tonight we were Friday-festive and went over to Melinda and Will's house for Wii and pizza. Nat and Jack teamed up playing Ray-man and the Rabbids, while the rest of us watched the baby convention that now roves around the house. Three mobile babies. Crazy fun and lots of trouble to come! Now all three can vie for the same toys or head off in different directions at once....Of course, our Friday night lasted til all of 7:00 as we had to get home to coax our children to bed. There was a time in life when Friday nights didn't even think about starting until well AFTER 7:00. hmmm.

It was a nice Friday all told, actually. Nat was parent helper at preschool this morning, which Jack just loves. There are many benefits to having your parent be the helper: you get to the be the line leader, you get to ring the circle time bell, you get to pass out snack. Which is even better when your awesome dad brings in Oreos for snack. :) (Jack opens them, then scrapes off the creme with his thumbnail and eats it. Lucky mommy or daddy get the cookies that are left.)
Ivy got a morning with Gram Gram out of the deal and then got macaroni and cheese for lunch. She eats it two noodles at a time...




Yum! Happy Friday, everyone!

Movin' it...

We have a crawler! Since Saturday she's been playing around more and more with that whole "forward movement" thing, and tonight Ivy really started crawling. Just short distances, and plenty or "move back, sit up, turn around, flop on the belly" still mixed in... but we'll count it. What provided the motivation, you ask? Jack's "Zhu Zhu pet" toy. Turns out she's crazy about Zhu Zhu pets.

It is strange to be going through this transition-to-mobility with a baby who approaches it SOO differently from how Jack did. Our thoughtful, deliberate and cautious boy never fell over or ran into things or trial-and-errored his way through anything. Ivy, she's going to be one of those kids who throw themselves at the world headfirst. Exhibit A, as proof:



Tough-looking nose-wound sustained while trying to climb up onto her knees while holding on to her toybox.

We have started calling her Bruiser.

Should I ever figure out how to bring a movie from the webcam to the blog, we captured some of the Zhu-Zhu pet crawling action in video form. Coming soon!