It is a lovely sunny day. A leisurely day. A morning spent watching the lake and my boy, digging in the sand. An afternoon spent in the cool dark of the house, the sun sneaking in at a slant through the porch, holding my sleeping girl. Time to tell you a few of the things I love about my children, right now.

The girl:

She is part turtle, part dinosaur. She is tiny (though less so every day!) and delicate, pink encased in pink with at least one ruffle or bow on her every day. Rosebud lips and long, pale eyelashes and hair that is just starting to curl, the tiniest bit, in the back. And then-- snort, grunt... face contorted, scowling, pouting, arms up and flailing... grunt some more... these strange, loud dinosaur noises come out of this small soft thing, accompanied by the most dramatic faces. And, as quick as she starts, she'll flop back into complete relaxation, full-abandon, rag-doll-armed slumber. And flash a sleep-smile at me, a smile that says, there, got that out of my system, all's right with the world again. A smile of utter contentment that gives a glimpse of the little girl to come.

I can only dream that this contentment and ease will continue for her... all the way to the teenage years, right? A mom can dream....

Ivy continues to take her sleep very seriously. She is probably still sleeping 20 hours a day, with short awake periods (5-45 minutes) throughout the day, mostly morning and evening, and then a nice, awake, somewhat crabby and demanding period somewhere around midnight.

We are approaching the 3-week mark, at which point we will begin to see her true colors. I am crossing lots of fingers that her true colors prove to be a sleeper and a consolable fusser. I know babies fuss. She is bound to have her crabby moments, bound to be uncomfortable and gassy and hard to live with at times. So far, those times are manageable. A little bouncing, some position changes, a lot of burping, and we can keep the crying to a minimum. Our sleepy, grunty, content baby is usually back in a matter of minutes or certainly a few hours. Stay this way, sweet girl, please?

Another thing I love about her: She still smells amazing. I love to nestle her in on my chest, a little ball of baby, feet cradled in my hand and the top of her fuzzy little head right there under my chin. A sniff away. And easy to kiss.

The boy:

Most of what I love about the boy at the moment can't be described. Because it's not even the things he says these days, but rather the way he says them. The inflection in his voice and the soft little mispronunciations of his speech and his oh-so-serious demeanor combine to make him utterly, stinking irresistable. I am a sucker for this kid. And the problem is, he knows it. You can see it in the sparkle in those gorgeous blue eyes-- this boy knows he's got his mama wrapped around his sweet, grubby pinkie finger. He tests the limits all the time but he generally tests them in a way that makes it impossible for me to get angry. This morning, as we had a getting-used-to-the day snuggle on his bed (he's in the toddler bed all the time now, by the way...) he looks up at me with those sparkly eyes and says in his best sleepy-voice, "watch tv???" I said, "Jack, since when do we watch TV first thing in the morning?" So he pauses, then looks up again and says, "cookies." Just like that, like it's a given that I will produce cookies for him at 7:30 in the morning. Eventually we did agree on waffles and I had a wonderful time with my chef's helper stirring in the applesauce and shaking on the cinnamon to make breakfast...
Another e
xample of how the boy gets away with everything can be viewed in the video below. Our "family fun" activity yesterday was to clean the porch. Nat and I started this escapade without the boy, but it is easy to forget just how much he loves to help. He was interested in what we were doing and so we gave him his own rag and before we knew it we had an overjoyed toddler stomping around the wet porch (in his socks, mind you), sloshing dirty water onto the floor and exclaiming "Tee?? It make red! I'm getting it darker!" and gleefully saying "This is awesome! We're making gray!" as he looked into the bucket. Who knew it would be such a good time? And the porch really does look better...

For the record, this was taken AFTER he'd been told to come inside for a bath and a nap. So you can see how well that went for me. I had gone out to tell him that it was time to come in, and the part you don't see on the video was him looking at me, sweet and serious, and saying, "Well, mommy, I'm just brushin this and so I can get it clean. Oh yeah! Let's do it!" Melt me.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_qushx99AkrA/TAA4Spbo1sI/AAAAAAAACbg/CVJyPw5Bw1I/s144/may%202010%20Ivy%20almost%203%20weeks%20042.jpg

guess who?

This one happens to be Jack, at about 4 weeks old. Thank goodness for the pink hearts Ivy is wearing in the picture below or we might not be able to tell them apart! I think there may be a family resemblance going on here, eh?
Many thanks to Grampa Jon for finding this picture to compare...

Time to wake up!

Ivy is really coming alive these past few days, waking up more and more, and starting to interact with us and her world rather than sleeping 22 hours a day... As with most developments in the world of parenting, this can be a good or a bad thing. Good when its 3pm and I have nothing else to do for an hour than snuggle and tickle and look at the alert, kicking baby. Bad when that same alert, kicking baby is also grunting and fussing and it happens to be 2am. Sigh.

While Ivy is far from being on any sort of schedule, she is seeming to develop some patterns. One is that charming awake period that falls, for about 2 hours, between 11pm and 3am. She is getting pretty endearing when she's quietly alert but during that night-time jag she seems to invariably have some pretty interesting things going on with her digestive system and will squawk and grunt and fuss and cry until she finally works out a few burps and a good poop. Then, finally, she'll relax. Can't complain too much as, after 3am, she is regularly giving us 4-6 hour stretches of sleep, as long as she's in bed with us. I believe she WANTS to be asleep at night, she's such a good girl... her tummy is just getting in the way.

Her daytime routine is more varied and includes a number of periods of time wherein she lays peacefully, silently asleep on her back in the pack and play, causing us to continually repeat the phrase "Why can't she sleep like this at night??" She's now working in 1-3 nice awake hours, too. We aren't quite sure what to do with her during those times, but luckily she's not picky and seems to get as much out of looking at the inside wall of the moses basket as she does being looked at and cooed at by us. She's really a pretty easy kid.


In other news, we had a busy day of outings yesterday. We started off the morning (a glorious, splendidly sunny morning!) with a family trip to the Hessler Street Fair. Nice way to start the day, looking at booths-of-crap with the hippies. We only had to pull back into the driveway two times for things we forgot. I think we're gradually getting better at this family-of-four thing. Well, five, really, as we took the dog with us. As always the dog got more comments than the baby. To her credit the baby was under a cover for most of the walk-- we were very hard core and did not use strollers-- we each wore a kid, Jack in the backpack and Ivy in the sling. We had a lovely time, finishing the morning with a picnic and fountain play in a lovely green on the Case campus.

Then I took the kids to the West side and gave Nat the afternoon off. We took Ivy and Jack to visit Bill and then had a nice time chatting with Ariel, Steve, and baby Leira who came to visit my mom. It was a lovely day of visiting but I must say I've gotten rather used to the afternoon nap that I missed yesterday...

2 weeks already!

OK, seriously. It seems like only a moment ago I was uploading 1 week pictures for you all. And here we are at 2 weeks. Time flies, when it is not 11pm with a sick toddler and a spitting up baby. Those hours still manage to take up a lot of time. Even as the weeks hurtle along...

We had a fun day today-- our first venture to the zoo as a family of 4. It was nice to prove we could do it, and we had a lot of fun, even if we did get rained on and only really stayed long enough to visit Australia and take Jack on the train. We'll definitely be heading back soon. We may summer at the zoo this year...

And for those of you who are interested in the big kid too-- a little snapshot to prove that, annoying as his behavior may be these days, he is in fact the most handsome little devil in the world...

Dr. Visits and Belly Buttons...

We have been to the pediatrician 3 times now in as many days.

Poor Jackie-bear has continued his illness all week. He visited the doctor on Wednesday to be checked for a possible ear infection- nope. He also had a strep culture-- negative there too. Thursday his illness evolved to include a pinprick rash on his hands and belly and feet... back to the doctor we went. We were informed that this was a normal progression of a virus, nothing to worry about, nothing to do about it but wait. Ugh. In the meantime the boy has been on a continuing hunger strike, most likely due to his very sore and inflamed throat, and his overall mood has left something to be desired. Poor pumpkin.

Today we all marched back to see Dr. Mann again, this time for Ivy's 2 week well-baby check up. Yes, so far she still appears to be a well baby, despite sharing the house with her affectionate, germ-machine big brother. She was pronounced to be "perfect", on track in all the ways a 2 week old is supposed to be on track--basic responses to sound and light, eating and peeing and pooping, working on her head control, all that jazz.

Her current stats:

Height: 20 inches-- 50%
Weight: 8lbs 3.5 oz--50%
Head: 25% -- we have another small-headed child, apparently...

Today at the doctor we were also given a name for Jack's mystery virus-- hand, foot and mouth disease. Exciting, huh? Dr. Mann said the progression of his rash clarified it, but that we still should neither worry nor try to do anything. Oh well, at least we have a name to blame for kiddo's misery now.

The girl has been "waking up" a bit today. Not that she's really had more than her usual 1-2 hours of total awake time, but she does appear to be asserting her personality more when she is awake. Real cries when she's upset at us (for instance, when being undressed for her weigh in today) and overall she is appearing more "formed" and a bit more with it when she is awake... We are hoping that this "wake up" will include more time to get to know this little person without a big increase in fussiness. Fingers crossed that she continues to be the easy girl she's been so far, only with eyes open from time to time...

One last update before we head off to attempt some sleep (last night, for the record = not the best of nights for any of us): At some point last night Ivy lost her umbilical cord! Jack made sure to point out to the Dr. today: "Look! Her have a belly button now!"

Deep thoughts from Jack

Tonight, driving.

Jack: I smell something in the car.

Mom: What do you smell, what does it smell like?

Jack: It smells like a car. With something in it.

Coughing and grunting...

....These are the current noises in our household. The boy has come down with a lovely cold this week. Up at night coughing, a fever yesterday and today. He continues to be on a hunger strike this morning though he is apparently feeling a bit better-- out helping Daddy build a deck instead of whining and clinging to Mommy as he did allllll day yesterday. Long day yesterday. There was certainly a small part of me that liked having a few extra cuddles from my boy, but not at the cost of his feverish, uncomfortable self. We are hoping that he is on the mend now...

The girl has not yet come down with the cold, though we are keeping an eye on a very slightly stuffy nose. Her new noise is the grunting. OK, not new, but with increasing vigor the past few days. She'll appear to be peacefully asleep when she'll contort her face and let out a very prehistoric-sounding grunt. Or perhaps grumble. Or a combination. Then, by the time you have a chance to notice and wonder what the problem might be-- back to sleep she goes. There seems to a slight correlation with grunting and having a wet or dirty diaper. The little lady may have a very sensitive bum? And of course there is far, far more grunting at night. I swear she grunts more and its not just that we notice it more in the quiet of the bedroom. During the day the child will lay quietly, peacefully asleep for up to 45 minutes, flat on her back in the pack and play, arms splayed out to the side with abandon. We tried to replicate this behavior last night 4 different times. Instant grunting each time. And she's just so little. I can't make myself leave her to "grunt it out" just yet. Not to mention that it's hard to sleep with a baby dinosaur making noise in the next room. So she is still coming in bed with us, where she turtles herself up next to me and sleeps in complete silence for hours at a time.