Sianora Siesta

Farewell beloved nap time. H has ceased his afternoon snooze . . . I guess I knew that it was coming, I was just hoping for another year or so of it - I've heard that there are children out there who will take an afternoon snooze till they're five! Ah well, he now has an afternoon quiet time - though I'm not sure how quiet it actually is with all the crashing of Legos that I hear.

Yesterday in the car I heard little E let out a screech of frustration and an "Ah oh!" (does that qualify as a first word?). I had finally readjusted the baby mirror so I could notice that his snugly fleece hat with ear flaps had rotated about 90%, (so the ear flap was over his nose) he looked like a shrieking Viking! It was hilarious! Much to his relief I pulled the car over and fixed it.

A while ago, H was in the backseat of the car getting a bit squirrly so I offered him a snack. He quickly accepted the fruit leather I handed him. HOWEVER, something was very wrong. In the midst of all the crying and high pitched whining I heard "I'm not familiar with this!" Hmmm, what could that mean? He'd had fruit leather before lots of times. I offered to take the snack back and that ended things for awhile. About five minutes later he started up again and kept repeated the previously mentioned phrase. To my great horror I realized that I had opened the fruit leather wrapper horizontally rather than vertically! Mystery solved . . . adjust the wrapper to open the "correct way" and I had a very happy camper.

Last night little E woke up crying about a very dirty nappy. His hollers woke up his older brother who started his own wailing outside little E's door. After quickly taking care of the duty, I snuggle little E close and went into the hallway where H whispered "Mom, I'm in a very scary situation!". My heart went to mush.

Post Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving dishes are nicely packed away, the folding tables waiting to be stored and the left overs almost all polished off. We hosted EH's family and many of my own this year. One look at all those tables and chairs organized on my main floor told me we were going to have to either refuse our family second servings or move the tables down to the basement where we could sit comfortably. We opted to move the tables. So we sat to dine with wedding china and borrowed goblets surrounded by our newly sheet-rocked walls. What a joy to have walls and not 2x4s and insulation! EH has worked diligently these past weeks to finish off the family room. Bless his heart and his hard work - I can hardly wait to practice summer salts with H on the freshly installed carpet . . . not sure when that's happening but I look forward to it! I'm grateful for sheet-rock - and the hands who labored to install it (our dads and good friend R)!

Thanks to the Internet I think I can say I'm over half done with my Christmas shopping. What an enjoyable way to shop! And Amazon's super saver free shipping helps me to not feel guilty about shopping from my seat versus hauling my little guys around a store having to visit and revisit and revisit items waiting for me to make a decision on what I want to finally purchase. This way I can take all the time I want and feel no pressure!

I have lots more family updating to write about, but this is all for now.

I leave you with H's comment this morning at breakfast - it was very dark and thunder-storming:
"I see a streetlight pretending to be Mr. Sunshine!"

Heel Pooch

As I was tucking H in for bed a few nights ago he was again pretending to be a puppy. He wanted me to give him a name . . . the only thing that came to mind was "Pooch", the name of my brother's dog when I was a kid. H loved the name and it has stuck. Tonight I was trying to think of a creative way to get him to obey me in a way that would avoid resistance. :) So I said that dogs are very obedient to their masters and whenever their masters say "heel" they come right away. It worked. Later as it was time to brush his teeth he even requested that I give him the command. I'm going to cherish this little gem and bring it out on "special" occasions. I can just see the looks now as I say "heel Pooch" to H in the grocery store.

Little E took a surprise dunk in the tub tonight. The way he leans over the edge of the tub as it's filling, I knew it was going to happen sometime soon. Fully clothed and soaked through and through . . . it took him a bit to gain his composure but he was smiling and laughing at papa's clowning around soon enough.

By the way, I just found a wonderful website for kids coloring and activity pages. Should have thought of this a long time ago: www.crayola.com. Great stuff for toddlers and older kids. Eddy has a printer to test at work so I'll be sending him lots of stuff to print out for us.

A chip off the . . .

Remember little E's independent excursion to the bath tub last night? In his excitement he slipped and bonked his mouth on the edge of the tub - happens maybe once every week or two. Only when I was trying to look in his mouth this morning (I was hoping to see some teeth finally breaking through) I saw that his beautiful top right tooth has a jagged chip in it. Ack! I didn't know a fiberglass bathtub could do such a thing! I'll follow up on this after we've decided what to do.

Update: A few years later (2011) it hasn't fallen out yet but you can't even see the chip anymore.

Don't hug the dust wand

I haven't felt very inspired to write lately. I think it might have to do with the lack of sunshine. . . and business. I picked up a full-spectrum light bulb to help with the one issue and things have settled down a little. It feels like so much has happened. I'll try to pack in as much as I can in a small amount of space.

Today I had to explain to little E that the dusting wand is not a stuffed animal to cuddle. He loves to snuggle stuffed animals (and people too) and tried to do so with the wand. He has been busy standing at the kitchen chairs and pushing them around. Tonight (once freed from his high chair) he heard the bath tub filling upstairs and made his own way up the stairway and right into the bathroom to go check it out.

Two more very important milestones in little E's life. First, he started sleeping through the night this week! Thank the good Lord! My intention to get a full nights sleep when we were away for our anniversary was rudely interupted by a rather loud wedding reception taking place below our room, a stuffy/cold head, a bed that would not give comfort. And my final note regarding my little E . . . he has weaned himself. Sniff, sniff, wail! After nursing H for 14 months I had every intention of doing the same with little E. Apparently he (at nine months) had other plans so he's drinking organic formula from a cup till he passes that 1 year mark and can digest cow or goat milk. I think I'm still greiving this loss as I just about cried in the grocery isle tonight picking up another can of formula.

Well on to my big boy H. Tonight I noticed him crunching on a dry spaghetti noodle. For anyone who spent any amount of time with me around the age of 10 you know that this was a standard "snack" for me. I think I even convinced a few of you to join me in partaking of them. I have since lost any interest in putting my teeth through such an excersice.

We had a great time visiting with my brother and his family from ID as they were in town this last week. H had a blast with his cousins - this morning he was still talking about them and asking "but why did they have to go home?" H and his cousin G spent their final hours together dressed in elephant cosumes. At my request, S&M rearranged the furniture in my living room and I feel as though I've been a part of one of those decorating/design shows that are always on TV.

I think there's more to write but EH just asked "Good land what are you typing!?" because I've been sitting here so long. I'm going to go read a few pages before bed now.

Three more days

Why do I even bother to answer the phone these days? It's just going to be another political remember to vote call. I WAS excited to go vote. Voting in the preliminaries just gets me excited for the "real thing" but I've gotta say that all the political phone calls and the ten pieces of political mail that I toss each day really diminishes the good old American pride of voting. Now I just want it to be over - true I want it to be over my way - but over just the same. Just three more days and counting.