I don't care if I go crazy, 1-2-3-4-5-6 switch!

Crazy go I if care don't I, 6-5-4-3-2-1 switch!

We went to Virginia this weekend to see Eli. (Yes, me and two kids under two in the car for what could have been potentially a disastrous journey, but it wasn't.) I took the camera, and...shocker...I actually took some pictures, which I'll put in another post tomorrow. No pics of Eli in his camouflage, none of the whole family, but I got some of the kids.

The drive up and back was pretty gruesome (for the driver, anyway) but the kids were great. Though, there have been some signs that perhaps we were in the car too long (taken today):

Evidence 1 -- Elsie has laid out the baby doll and wipes to change the baby's diaper on the seat of the car. Wonder where she got that idea? (Clarification -- there were no police cruisers involved in our trip.)



Evidence 2 -- My child now thinks that dirty flower pots are hats.



More pics soon, I promise!

Cheers.

7 Months of O

You might have noticed that I'm trying to catch up with kid updates. There's so much else I want to write about as well, but I know that most of you are here to read about the kids, haha. So, here's Oscar's 7 month update.

It has been eventful, for sure. My sweet little boy who was prodded and poked in the emergency room after he caught his father's virus in November (yes, the one that caused meningitis in daddy), started wheezing and not feeling well this last week. I was sick on Saturday, so I waited until Sunday when I could safely be away from my bathroom to take him to the after hours clinic at our Pediatrician's office. I couldn't find anyone on the spur of the moment to help me with Elsie, so I took them both--heretofore my greatest nightmare. Thankfully, the office was mostly closed, so Elsie just ran around wearing herself out while Oscar tried desperately to sleep. The pediatrician on call diagnosed him with RSV and an ear infection but cleared him for daycare.

Needless to say, he didn't do so well because he was feeling miserable, so I took a half day on Monday and half day on Tuesday in order to spread out my ONE sick day for the month. My dear friend who was a pediatric nurse watched the kids on Tuesday morning so that they wouldn't be with the other kids at daycare. Our pediatrician is her sister-in-law, so I told her that if she felt like the kids needed to be taken back, then take them. She did, and it turned out that Oscar's ear infection had turned into a double ear infection, and that Elsie also had an ear infection (her first). Fun.

So, if I recall, Oscar was upwards of 17 pounds when he went on Sunday. I tried to make a mental note, but lost it completely. He is the sweetest baby. I just love him to pieces. He's started sitting up pretty solidly this month (you know, except when Elsie tries to sit on him or just pushes him over because it's funny to her). He's also talking so much (da da da, ya ya ya) and making raspberries like they're going out of style. The toes have been found. He prefers to be just in his diaper, and the weather is starting to be more conducive to that.

Alas, we are not eating solid food yet (though Eli did shove some mashed potatoes in his mouth at dinner tonight!). Soon. Soon. There's just so much other stuff going on, and he has shown mostly no interest in food. As for sleeping, he's still not sleeping through the night, and I've been trying really hard to leave him in his bed, but I'm just exhausted, so I have, on weekend nights, been moving him to a pillow on Eli's side of the bed. after feeding him, since he's just going to wake up in two hours anyway. I don't remember what it's like to get a whole night's sleep.

And yes, I did say Eli shoved mashed potatoes in his mouth. We are on spring break, and I drove 10.5 hours with the kids today to come up here and see him for a few days. They were rock stars in the car. But I'll write more about that later.

Cheers.

22 Months

In no time, I start counting by the year instead of months. I'm still in disbelief that my sweet little girl will be two! The time is particularly flying by since it's just the three of us with Eli gone. I haven't had much time to blog, but have put together several posts in my head--this is one of them. So here goes.

The big shocker this month: Elsie can open doors. Doors with knobs. That push or pull.

This truly is the end of the world as we know it. Nothing is safe anymore. She likes to play in the sink in the downstairs bathroom, getting water everywhere. I had to go to extreme measures to keep her out: lock the door from the inside.

I'm not so lucky when it comes to the pantry, becaues the pantry doesn't have a lock. She came wandering over to me the other day with fruit snacks in her hands. Where did she find those? That's when I realized her new skills.

This month she also started using understandable sentences. She was mad at me because I wouldn't let her have Oscar's pacifier one day when she wasn't feeling well. The babysitter had given her her "emergency" paci before we left and I let her bring it home, so I said, "Where is your pacifier? Is it by your bed?" She left the room and came back a few minutes later proclaiming, "I foun it! I foun it!" It took me a minute to figure out what she was yelling. So I asked, "Did you find it?" She turned the corner to where I could see her, thrust the pacifier at me and triumphantly said, "Yes!" She also uses the phrase "I dop it" when she's dropped something, anything. And I feel like at Kroger today, that cashier said thank you and Elsie turned to him and said something that sounded like "Have a nice day." !?!

She loves to color. Though when she says it is sounds like "car" or "kerr". No els to be found. Pens, pencils, crayons. She doesn't care. She also likes to write on herself.

She has said "thank you" for a long time, but this month just started tacking "mommy" onto it when I give her something. "Thank you, Mommy!"

She also has gotten pretty proficient with the spoon. Now, most mornings as she eats her oatmeal, she comes up clean--no globs in her lab or drops on her shirt. I'm impressed.

And finally, she has started to confidently climb the stairs. We haven't had a gate at the bottom of the stairs for a while because she doesn't play on the stairs. We're probably going to have to put that gate back because she's become more and more bold, and with that she is much quicker. There's no running upstairs for something without Elsie following me.

I feel like there's so much more. She's growing so fast!

Cheers.