Shakes

Tonight since it was 95, we decided to introduce the kids to the McDonald's shake. Sam wanted strawberry and Matthew wanted chocolate. Abby didn't get anything and Jason and I figured we'd eat whatever the boy's didn't. McDonalds has really dressed up their shakes since I last had one (I don't even remember how long it's been since I had one, probably 5+ years) as the come topped with whipped cream and a cherry. Anyway, we took them to the deck (any frozen treat we had belongs on the deck) and the boys ate and ate and ate. Abby fussed, grabbed, looked longingly at them, but was otherwise pretty happy to just be standing, which she is doing very well these days. Both boys ate about 3/4 of their shakes, leaving Jason and I with just a melty, foamy bottom which we decided to pass on. Matthew, as often happens when he eats drippy, melty food, required a clothing change afterward. 

Abby's standing

Abby has pretty much mastered pulling up and standing. She is even starting to cruise a bit, inch by inch. She pulls herself up on anything she can possible grip well enough to support herself while getting her legs under her, including her crib. Most naps and bedtimes involves at least one episode in which we hear her screaming on the monitor and go to her room to find her gripping the rail of her crib, screaming hysterically, as she cannot figure out how to successfully get down.

 So here are some pictures of her standing beside the kids' picnic table while Sam is having his snack. Have I mentioned before how much Sam loves Abby? He adores her. Just adores her. This morning he came into my room and we chatted for a bit before I heard Abby starting to make noises. I told him that I heard Abby and he was quiet for a moment, and upon hearing Abby make a noise he said, "Peanut's awake!" Then he quickly headed to her room. Before he left, though, he instructed me not to come in to get her for awhile. He wanted some time with her by himself for a bit, so I brushed my teeth and then went in to get little peanut. A few days ago I woke up upon hearing Abby and found her in her room, and Sam was already in there, fully dressed, sitting on the floor next to her crib talking to her. Abby also seems to really enjoy Sam as she smiles and bounces around a bit when she sees him. 

Af

 After some time, Matthew got up from his nap and joined us for snack time. Both boys decided they wanted to "relax" in the lounge chair, so here they are "relaxing". 

Can you hear me?

On Sunday we were playing outside when Jason commented that he thought Matthew was maybe hard of hearing. I disagreed as he just seems to have selective hearing and needs physical direction sometimes rather than just voice commands. Well, Jason decided to test his hearing. Matthew was riding his trike in the driveway when he stopped and started staring at something for a few moments. Jason then said softly, "Matthew, can you hear me?" Matthew continued staring. Then Matthew got off his trike and starting running toward us, yelling, "Ahhhhhhh! Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Ahhhhhh!" which was then followed by Matthew throwing his head back and squealing with laughter. Well, that answered Jason's question. Jason and I both stifled laughs although our laughs were masking apprehensions about who the heck is this kid and what does his future hold for us?

On another note, we've had a fair amount of rain lately and Matthew has taken to playing in the tote of rainwater which has been sitting on our deck for a few days. In fact, after I took the pictures below, Sam even got his swim trunks on and joined in the fun. Sam added a couple of glasses of water to the tote, but other than that it's all rainwater. Today the water measures 3.5 inches deep. Sorry, Iowa family, I hope some comes your way soon.

More potty training

So we decided it was time to kiss diapers goodbye for Sam. He's been using them at night, not so much because he wets his bed, but more so because Jason and I (mostly I) didn't want to get up at night to help him with going to the potty if he needed it. But now that Abby is sleeping so well, I guess there's no more excuses for us not to have Sam wear underwear to bed and get up and use the potty if he feels the urge. So we tried it two nights ago and Sam wet the bed. At about 6AM I heard Abby making noises so I went into check on her and it turns out that Sam had wet himself, changed into his clothes for the day and was sitting in Abby's room talking to her. I don't know how long he was in there, but it couldn't have been too long as I didn't hear Abby talking much before I went in to check on her.

So night one wasn't a good start. Then on to last night. We left Sam's bathroom light on and talked about getting up to use the potty if he felt like he needed to go. After our bedtime routine and goodnights, I went to Jason and my bedroom to work on the computer and about 20 minutes later I hear the toilet flush and faucet turn on in the kids' bathroom. Sam had gotten up to use the potty and took care of everything himself. He made me so proud. After an uneventful night, I awoke around 6:15 AM to some kid yelling softly. I thought it was Matthew, but it didn't quite sound right, so I wasn't sure. Then I thought it was Abby. Hmmmm. It didn't quite sound like her either. I was trying to assess the situation without getting out of bed so that's why I couldn't quite figure out who it was. Then Jason got up so I thought he had heard the yelling and was going to see what was going on. Instead he went into our bathroom and started the shower. Grrrrr..."Jason!" I yelled. No answer. Well, I guess I'm going to have to investigate myself. So I got up and paused outside of Abby's door. Nothing. Then I paused outside of Matthew's door. Nothing. Then I hear the soft yell of "Wipe my butt!" Mystery solved. Sam was yelling and it sounded muffled because he was in the kids' bathroom. Well, anyway, Sam was dry last night and I woke up to the sweet sound of "Wipe my butt!"

So I helped Sam out, then paused outside Abby's door. She was talking now. I got her, then paused outside of Matthew's door.  He was talking too. And our day begins.

Matthew is potty training too. I haven't mustered the courage to put him in underwear yet as I'm just not ready for poopy underwear, but he's trying to use the potty when he wakes up, at snacktimes and meals and before/after naps. Sometimes he goes of his own accord, but mostly I tell him it's time to try the potty. He always tries and thus far today, has produced something everytime, but he's also pooped in his diaper and not on the potty. But already with 4 hits today, he is well on his way to a new toy car. And maybe we'll try underwear soon. Maybe.

Food idiosyncrasies

Matthew eats only the filling of the Oreo. He twists it open (or Jason or I twist it for him), then he puts it in his mouth and sucks off the filling, the spits back out the cookie. Usually he leaves the sucked on cookies on the counter or table. He prefers to place food that he doesn't want to eat beside his plate and not on it.

The boys got Dilly bars from Dairy Queen for the first time recently. After eating some of his Sam said, "I only like the chocolate part, the white part is too cold". Um, Sam, that would be the ice cream.

Matthew eats copious amounts of ketchup. He needs at least 1/4 cup for some chicken nuggets. Similar to his eating of Oreos, he dips his food (chicken nuggets, fries, carrot sticks, watermelon, whatever strikes him as needing ketchup) into ketchup, sucks the ketchup off and then dips some more. He will usually eventually eat whatever food he was using to scoop ketchup, but not until it has been thoroughly dipped.

Matthew eats butter off of bread. We've learned to spread it very thin so he actually eats the bread too as before he would eat off the buttered half of the bread and leave behind a very pitted, thin, unbuttered slice of bread.

Similar to the comment about ketchup above, the boys almost always have some form of dip on the plates. Ketchup, veggie dip, mayo, a variety of salad dressings, peanut butter, hummus...Usually there is only one dip, but sometimes as many as three. I've learned that kids are more likely to eat something or try something if they can dip it. Sam even prefers to eat his salad by hand, dipping each piece of lettuce into some salad dressing. Last week the kids and I went to the garden when after a few minutes Sam disappeared. I went inside to look for him and found him with a small piece of lettuce from the garden, and a large dallop of french dressing enjoy the firstfruits of the garden.

When we have tacos, Sam takes his tortilla a tears it into very small pieces--like less than a square centimeter in size and he won't eat any of it until he has torn his entire tortilla into this tiny pieces. So he ends up with a little pile of tortilla and then he proceeds, of course, to dip it into "lettuce dip" (aka french dressing).

Abby doesn't have anything to report yet, but I'm sure she will develop some interesting approaches to food in the near future. More on that later.

Faces

Lately we've play a game where the kids and I have to make faces for different emotions. We all get a really good laugh out of the game and I think you will too.

Sad

Sam usually doesn't make a face like this when he's sad. He generally throws his head back, opens his mouth wide and screams. Matthew does that too. But this is apparently how Sam interprets a "sad" expression.

Sly

Excited

Grumpy

 Matthew is the king of grumpy faces. And he loves to make his grumpy face. The other day he was making a grumpy face, then he said, "I'm not grumpy anymore, read book?"

Happy

Hmmm...very happy!

Just the kids and I

Jason was in Boston for work Tues-Friday and Grandma Sue was here for part of the week, and I was on my own for a couple of days before Jason returned. We had fun playing with bubbles which Grandma Sue got for the kids and I was grateful that the kids had someone other then myself to play with.

For two of the nights I let Sam sleep in Jason and my bedroom. He got to sleep with Jason when I took Matthew and Abby to IA a couple of weeks ago and I promised him that when Jason was gone he could sleep in our room for part of the time. Before Sam went to bed one of the nights, I laid down the ground rules for sharing a bed with mommy. One was that we sleep with the light off. Another was that if Sam got up repeatedly for unnecessary reasons (I didn't state it like that, but used little kid language to convey the same thing) I would have to assume that he wasn't able to fall asleep in my bedroom and he'd have to go to his own. Another rule was that he was not to bother me until his clock turned yellow in the AM. He agreed to all the stipulations and we read stories, sang songs and he went to bed without a hitch at 8PM. I then went downstairs for some time to myself.

Around 10PM, I went upstairs to go to bed and found Sam had fallen asleep while lying horizontally across the top third of the bed. His head was on Jason's pillow and his lower legs were on mine. Hmmm. I had a few options to choose from: 1) try to move Sam without waking him...that was not going to work...2) Wake up Sam intentionally and reposition him...I thought he'd want to talk then and would have difficulty going back to sleep...3) Sleep on the edge of the bed and leave him be across the top...that would be quite uncomfortable...4) Join him in lying horizontally across the bed. Well, I chose option 4. I loosened the sheets and blankets and situated my pillow where my feet usually are and laid horizontally across the bottom of the bed. It actually was pretty comfortable as our mattress is pretty saggy where I usually lay and it wasn't saggy where our feet lay, so it worked out. Later in the night Sam moved his feet  below him and he ended up kicking me, but other than that it was fine.

Sam got to sleep in Jason and my room one more night and this time he took awhile to fall asleep, woke up when I came to bed, talked and wanted to hang out well past his bedtime and woke up early. It didn't go quite as smoothly that night, but he was surprisingly uncrabby the next day. Overall, we had a fun sleepover. And I got to sleep with one of Sam's stuffed bird toys. And Sam even offered to share BaaBaa for awhile, but I kindly declined.

Things Abby does

Abby is 7.5 months these days and she's "grown" incredibly fast lately in that she has reached all sorts of milestones over the past few weeks. Here is a sampling of what she does these days.

• Feeds herself table food using her fingers (cut up into small, baby pieces, of course). Lots of babies start off palming their food, but Abby skipped that step and instead daintily picks up her food with her thumb and forefinger. Whenever we are eating, she wants to be eating, so I set up a booster seat on a chair at the counter and now she joins us in all our meals (if she's awake). The boys are very excited to have her at our family table and I have to be very careful with them as they both want to tear off small bits of food and give them to Abby.
• Crawls. She sometimes worms her way around, pulling herself up and flopping forward, but she can easily crawl too. Today she even started pulling herself up on her knees. She is much too weak to stand up, but she really wants to.
• Sits steadily by herself. She transitions quickly from crawling, lying down and sitting, easily getting into any position she wants to. 
• Waves. This is a new one, just started yesterday or Friday, I can't remember for sure. She's working on her twisted-hand wave, rolling her hand around when she feels like greeting someone. 

Less related to "milestones", but still notable things about Abby are 1) she sleeps 12 uninterrupted hours at night (she's been doing this on and off for 2 months or so), 2) has two teeth, and 3) has developed a new "frustration cry" as I call it. Now we all know that Abby can certainly cry, but she has a new pitch these days, one that means, "respond to me now or your ear drums will pay". Our little girl is growing up so fast!