Cousins

Caden and Kindred are, well, buddies. No, not really. They know at some point they want to really enjoy hanging out with each other. But for right now, they are 2. So they stayed at this distance, a safe space apart for most of the time they were in the same place.


Caden has been blessed, thanks to a sale at B*J's, with a fabulous "moon bounce", you know those things that blow up with air and you can jump and bounce around in them without fearing serious bruising? So the boys played in this contraption one afternoon. Kindred was at first a little nervous, but Caden assured him there was nothing to fear.

Kindred got a little more comfortable...
...then Caden really cut loose!

Kindred had his fun, then exited for lunch.

Christmas aftermath

I haven't been around for a few days, but finally the chaos that seems every year to define the holiday season has finally passed, ending officially with the blessing of one of my best friends to honor her as a pregnant woman about to bear her third daughter. It was a joyful celebration and I'm glad I was able to be a part of it.

Of course, because I didn't get a planner for Christmas and only had dates and events for the new year in my old planner on a list on a back page (which I failed to look at), I relaxed in bed on Monday morning until 9:45am (yes, both kids were just stirring), and realized with a start of dread that I had thoroughly missed Elias' 9am appointment with his pediatrician. Great way to start the year. It's only the 8th and already I have the "first missed appointment of the new year."

(Aside: Michael has made a tradition of announcing every new thing as it happens as the "first _______ of the new year!" As in the "first shower of the new year!", and the "first drink of water...!", the "first laundry load...!", the "first F-bomb drop of the new year!" He used to do it at the most random times and I would either crack up or roll my eyes. But this year he only made the announcement a very few times, and I missed it.)

The boys have been letting us have it since we've been back for dragging them all over the country for 3 weeks. They loved spending time with Gparents and aunts and uncles, but it has wrecked Kindred's ability to cope and communicate without whining all the time (we think he's taught himself how to pop tears out at any given moment, like he's Sean Penn or something), and Elias had the biggest melt-down yesterday that I have ever witnessed. He was screaming and screaming like he was in terrible pain and I was crying, and then he fell asleep for 3 hours, doing that sad sad sobbing-in-his-sleep routine. It was awful. But they seem to be doing better today.

While we were away, Kindred learned to make more complete sentences, using verbs and tenses and such. Like, "Mama, go say Aunt Martha come in Jidjid room." What? And today, his little train had run out of batteries, and he said, "Mama, choo choo broke. Fix." I told him the battery situation and he disappeared into my room, returning after a few minutes with battereis that had been taped to a Christmas present I'd received that needed them. He'd spent a few minutes un-taping them and brought them to me. "Mama, change batteries."

Elias, while we were away, learned to suck on his lips. So funny.

Below are Christmas pictures from Florida. There will be more more more.

Christmas, the scoop

On Christmas Eve on the morning, we all went to church at the small Presbyterian church the Florida family has been going to (which was a little strange, they are Baptist) and the service was fine. It's cute little church with a very enthusiastic worship team and a theologically-minded pastor. When we got home, we had dinner with the whole family at Michael's mom's house. This was the only time all of us could be together with Grandma Angie, who has Alzheimer's. She joined us for the meal and for a time to exchange gifts for her and Grandpa Dave. The meal was lovely, even with four boys under 3 in attendance, and Michael made a tofurkey, his best ever. Then after dinner and gifts, we headed back to church.

I had been looking forward to church that evening. Michael and I in years past have been able to attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve, azaaafgk
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[This is what you get when you go to the bathroom and your toddler is intrigued by your new keyboard. He had typed this, opened a new tab for me in the browsing window, hidden the browser and brought up my computer menu by the time I got back.] Anyway, back to Christmas Eve. Midnight mass is usually quite soothing and beautiful, a short service filled with singing carols and candlelight. We hadn't gotten to sing any Christmasy songs this season, so I was happy for the chance to do that with this church. I also was comfortable bringing the children since I thought they would enjoy the singing as well.

As it turned out, the service was not quite what I should have expected. We sang a few songs to start out, then they invited the kids to come forward and light the Advent candles. I thought this might be interesting for Kindred, so I took him to the front of the church to participate. He only wanted to run up the steps and explore the altar, so I had to wrestle with him during the solemn ceremony. Then a woman came forward with a blanket, a shawl around her shoulders, to read the Christmas story to the children. She spread out her blanket and the children snuggled up on the floor, Kindred included, to listen. Then she opened up the bible and read to them from Luke 2. (Booooring! But the kids behaved. All except Kindred, who crawled around and wanted to visit all the other children.) Finally that was over, and we returned to our seats for a short sermon. OK, not so much a short a sermon. A 35 minute, 3-point outline, power-point enhanced salvation message. Kindred lasted less than 5 minutes. Even Elias lost it at one point. Michael relieved Kindred of his obligation to behave and took him outside to run around in the muggy rain. I fed Elias, and eventually escaped to the outdoors as well "Just to check on the boys."

The three of us went back inside for the final "Silent Night" with candles, but not before Michael, amused, informed me that I had unknowingly provided some entertainment for the congregation when I was wrestling my son earlier by showing off my underwear to everyone when my skirt waistband got pulled down considerably. And not just any underwear, mind you. My army green and sunshine yellow thong. So of course I showed more than just my underwear.

I whispered a quick prayer of thanks that I was not a regular attendee of that church and hoped that my mother-in-law didn't receive any reprimands for not only bringing her disruptive grandchildren to a reverent church service, but for allowing her daughter in law to flash her booty to the whole church. Then I put on my best face, lit my candle and sang with the lot. I was attentive after the service was finished to anyone approaching me to thank me for coming. (Especially men.)

So on to Christmas morning. Kindred got totally overwhelmed after opening 3 gifts, so Michael and I ended up opening not only our own gifts, but our boys' gifts as well. It was a lovely time.


Kindred celebrated the time together with his family by dog piling on top of Elias. Often.

A trip to the zoo, and a swim

One of the advantages to being in Florida was that the weather was good enough to allow us to swim in the parent's pool. Or not. On Christmas Eve it was so muggy I wanted to go to church minimally dressed. But the rest of the time it wasn't necessarily warm, and it certainly wasn't swim weather, heated pool or not. But did that stop Michael from keeping his promise to Kindred and himself that they would go in the pool while in Florida? Certainly not!

If you look closely, Kindred is trying to keep his teeth from chattering, and Michael is trying to stop himself from bolting out of the water, but they persevered, both desperately wanting to swim and have fun in the pool.

It wouldn't have been too bad if the wind hadn't been blowing. But after about 10 minutes in the water, they gave up the quest for a fun pool afternoon, satisfied with their brief and chilly aquatic adventure.

Michael had been excited to hit up the local county zoo, which has a pretty diverse range of animals despite it's small size. So we went with Grandma and Great Grandpa (or Ga-Ga and Biiig Popop, as Kindred would say) and Michael's sister's family.

Elias was especially excited about seeing all the animals.

Elizabeth and Darren's oldest son, Caden, couldn't wait to get on the train, apparently a requisite for any zoo trip according to him. We gladly obliged and all hopped on the very slow moving train for a zip around the zoo, narrated by the pleasant, faithful, ancient train conductor.

Elias was very bored, and could hardly stay awake.

Kindred blissfully let the wind blow through his hair while we passed close by the animals in the wild. A choo-choo and live animals right up close. A dream come true.

Hooray! New keyboard!

This post is primarily for me to try out and enjoy the new keyboard I just got for "keesmass" from the dear husband. It is bigger and the keys are white and they have a "glow" function so I can actually see what I'm typing even in the dark! Wee-hoo!

I AM EXCITED (whoa, caps lock) about using this keyboard more in the next few hours after naptime begins and I will tell lots more stories about Christmas vacation and post more pictures. (Here's the thing about our Florida trip. I uploaded the pics form my camera, and there were 97 of them. No joke. Ninety-seven. So it will take some sorting to figure out what to put up as to not overwhelm even the most interested of persons.)

Peace!

Christmas, a summing up

We spent a week in Florida with Michael's family over Christmas. I will share more stories and such, but here's a few pictures to occupy the time.

Prepping for the Holidays

It's Christmas at our House! Michael made the windows look real festive. (The rest of the room looks very nice too.)

I spent most of yesterday cleaning my room, getting ready to pack us up for our trip to Florida for Christmas. (We will be there for a week.) I was pretty successful, and was able to find my floor, which was a huge accomplishment. Meanwhile, Kindred occupied himself by playing in my suitcase.

In preparation for the trip, we gave Kindred a bath. Since that morning, he had been announcing he wanted a "bubble bath!" So...

he got one.

This is a fabulous picture of Elias' eyes. You can see the streak of brown really clearly.

While I was getting the picture of Elias, Kindred said, "Mama! Jid-jid piture!"

So I had to oblige him.

You can see the little choo choo making it's way around our little tree.

Finally, here's my little snuggle bug...

and here he is in his favorite position.

Kindred stories

When Kindred was very small, I used to tap the bottoms of his feet together while I sang, "Kindred's feet, Kindred's feet, Kindred's feet my love, doot doo." I do it to Elias now. But lately Kindred has been able to sing it on his own as he taps-- well, more like bangs his feet together. 'Jidjid's feet, jidjid's feet, doo doo!"

I sometimes tickle Kindred's feet. I want him to get used to his feet being touched so that he might learn to appreciate a good foot rub, unlike his father who won't let me go near his feet and can't seem to understand why I might want him to touch mine. (Silly silly man!) So I alternate between tickling and rubbing for Kindred. He lets me know when to switch. He'll say, "Teekow, teekow," then "Yubba, yubba!" Yubba? It's my favorite.

OK, and here's a video of when he apparently pooped quite a bit before he fell asleep, creating a painful diaper rash for himself when he woke up several hours later. This was my solution:

Cooking with Dada

Often when Michael cooks, Kindred hangs around by his legs wanting to "Up! See! Cook!" So Michael has developed an ability to stick Kindred up on the counter by where he works and walks Kindred through some simple tasks while he gets the food ready. I cannot imagine doing this-- my child would surely get burned or chopped and dinner would get ruined from my clumsiness. But Michael is fine, and Kindred loves being involved.

This morning I went out shopping and came home to this picture:

The boys were helping Dada make these:

Now I have to add another story about cookies.

Last week we ordered Chinese food and I gave Kindred a whole fortune cookie after he was finished eating, mostly to occupy him while Michael and I talked. After a few minutes, we heard, "A- HA!" He had discovered a piece of paper in his cookie! I think he thought it was a treasure. He held it out for us to see, all smiles, proud of his amazing discovery.

(I was pretty amazed that he hadn't gone and just eaten it!)

picture stories

I'm so behind with writing that I feel like I should stop forever. You know how that is? There's just too much to catch up on. I feel terrible about this. My kids have made such leaps in the past few weeks and I have left those events undocumented. So I guess I'll give this a jump start. Gotta get going again somewhere, right? So let's start here:

This one's freaking cute. He is finally slipping into a readable pattern, mostly. I mean, there's always days that he's thrown off, but I'm starting to understand him, and create nap times, and figure out how to do bedtimes without him losing his mind and screaming his head off. He's a pretty happy guy when he gets good sleep.

His eyes are still blue, with one lone streak of brown in his right eye, going down diagonally to the right. Will he keep the blue with this one tiny bit of brown? It would be a phenomenon.

Here he is, sleeping in his carseat, hugging his bib. I have to strap him in to everything or else he'll throw himself on the floor: carseat, swing, he's even tried to pop out of the Bumboseat and I haven't figured out if that is entirely possible. This is so not what I'm used to. I don't want to always compare my kids to eachother, but I will say that this is pretty different than how I had to deal with Kindred. He was happy to stay put where he was, strapped in or not.

When I pull out the camera anymore, Kindred runs up to me and demands that I take a picture of him. He cheeses or sets up some ridiculous pose and waits for the flash.

He is unbelievable these days. He seems to make cognitive jumps a few times a day. (No wonder he takes 3 hour naps! This has got to be exhausting.) He puts things together in his head that he has not been taught. He just figures them out. I should carry a notebook around to write them all down, because there's so many of them I forget them. I'll tell you about a few instances.

He knows the difference between too big and too small. Like when he's taken a bite that is too much for his mouth, and why Elias's socks don't fit his feet. When I'd left my cereal bowl on the bench the other day, he walked over to me and said, "Sink," and took my bowl and spoon to the sink. The spoon went in easily, but he had trouble with the heavy bowl. I heard a few grunts from the kitchen, then a little voice. "Too much," he reasoned aloud, and called, "Mama, hep!" (help).

*An aside. Both of my boys are sleeping. (A minor miracle.) My landlord is here to clean up the yard. (Very sweet.) But in his attempt to retrieve a broom and dustpan, he's just SLAMMED THE BASEMENT DOOR RIGHT OUTSIDE KINDRED'S WINDOW, and he's POUNDING AND POUNDING something down there. ARG!!*

Anyway, moving on. So here's Elias trying to launch from the Bumbo. Actually, no, he seems pretty comfy in there at the moment, but if you click on the picture and look close, there's a river of drool down the side of the seat, collecting in a puddle on the hardwood. (and Lisa, yes, the upside-down smile has appeared on his knees! What a chunker.)

Remember that train Kindred got from Papap and Grammie and Uncle Mike? Well, he really really likes it. The engine was "lost" for a few weeks-- it had lodged under the dresser and the batteries had run out. Mama, to the rescue, found it, replaced the batteries, and Kindred's favorite thing to do these days it just run the engine with a few cars on the back all around the apartment. Forget the track. He doesn't need it. It's too limiting. (I'll show you a picture perhaps next time of the small track running around our little Christmas Rosemary tree. (That's all we could fit. If we got a big tree, could you imagine? We'd have to sleep in the garage.) Michael thought it would be cute to have Kindred's train run around it. It was. For one night. That's about all Kindred could handle. He had to free his poor train for world exploration.)

Another cheeseball shot:

Kindred understands that Elias doesn't eat the same things that he does. Well, most times. I have tried to explain that Elias doesn't have teeth, so he can't eat the apple that Kindred has kindly offered to him (but thanks so much for offering, honey). When Elias is nursing, Kindred announces, "Baby Ayiyas eet boobie."

Kindred is also pretty intrigued with my breast pump. He knows what it is, and he knows how to use it. Well, sorta.

And finally, the "Sunday series." When we left church last week, Michael asked Kindred where we were going. Kindred exclaimed, "Home! Fooball!" Someone has taught their son well. Depending on the time, Kindred's shout is either "Go Giants!" or "Eayayayales!" after Michael spells out E-A-G-L-E-S. (What are we going to do next week?)

What could all these boys be so interested in?

Oh, right. The TV across the room. Yeah, football season.

So I hope that's a sufficient catching up post. I'm going to try to be better. I really am. I make no promises. I have Christmas presents to work on.