Gametes In Love

I love it when G “reads” with us. Since he saw the camera come out, he all of a sudden forgot how, but warmed up halfway through the video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdaoCKy29Kk]

There’s a list of skills I think every parent acquires. You kinda know you’ve “made” it when:

1. You learn to go to the bathroom and take off/put on your pants only with one hand… because the other one is holding the baby. (For the ladies: maternity pants truly go INTO maternity, let me tell ya’ and extra points for mastering this skill on NON-maternity pants)
2. You’ve dropped food on your child’s head on it’s way to your mouth, because again, you’re holding the baby while eating.
3. You find yourself saying things like “Come here so I can smell your butt” to your child… and then doing it.
4. Your kid spits up on their outfit, and instead of changing it, you smell it to decide if it still has life in it left.
5. You become quite accustomed to sleeping sitting up from holding a baby in the middle of the night.
6. You pick our furniture and carpeting based on stain resistance and not just aesthetic factors.
7. You pause (and cringe) when you accidentally swear for fear that your 2-yr old heard you.
8. You feel blessed to have a non-interrupted conversation with another adult in the presence of your child.
9. You can’t have a conversation for more than 10 minutes with another parent (or soon-to-be parent) that is not about children.
10. You find yourself wanting to do chores alone. These same chores pre-children you wanted to do in the company of others.
11. You know all the lyrics to introductory songs of shows you would have previously never been caught sober, watching.

My list goes to 11 🙂 Wanna add more?

S2 is on the search for his thumb. He’s been seeking it out for the past 2 weeks. He’s found his fists, but try as he might, he can’t fit a whole one in his mouth. So he’s looking for the thumb. He’s close. The thumb points in his mouth, but he hasn’t figured out how to pry it away from the rest of the first. Instead he just licks it.

Good news for me. The idea of a thumb-sucker does not appeal to me.

G never really took to a paci. He’d entertain it while it was around, but he never craved it. Luckily he never really found his thumbs either. And STILL his teeth are messed up. It’s unfair I tell you. Flat out unfair. I’m looking at having to set up an orthodontics fund (per the recommendation of his dentist), and we didn’t encourage (nor did he adopt) any behavior that would mis-align his teeth.

So with S2 I’m pushing the paci when I see the fists come out. I can take a paci away. I can’t take the thumbs away, and I would really like to avoid an orthodontia fund for 2 children. Sigh.

So while I continue watching for thumb sucking offenses, here’s a cute picture of our little sneak with his new buddy, Mo. Mo is short for Mohawk. Mohawk, the zebra.

PS. Yes, I realize that all of S2’s photos of late seem to be in this exact same outfit. I PROMISE you he has more than one onesie. Just for some reason he seems to do cute things, and I seem to document said cute things when he’s wearing this one.

The highlights from December

This is how G draws a spider (look at the green doodle). Given that there’s a circle for the thorax and some sticks coming out of it for the legs, I’m pretty impressed. Granted this spider only has 5 legs, but still: it could be a spider.

12.2010

12.11.2010: Raindeer

12.12.2010

12.13.2010

12.15.2010

12.28.2010

12.29.2010

We were in the car the other day and G was trying to get S’ attention. I chimed in asking “Ok, buddy. What do you want to say?”, only to be told:

“No mama, me talka to daddy!”

Uhmn… OK. Mama’s been shut down… by a 2yr old.

Well, we kind of missed the boat on making Christmas cookies before, well… Christmas. So instead we made New Year’s cookies. Making dough was a bit more than I wanted to handle with two toddlers, so we opted for the easy approach: store bought cookie dough.

S and K had a fabulous time rolling out dough and stamping it with cookie cutters.

In the end the cookies didn’t really look like the shapes they came from. Really they looked like big sugar blobs. Also they tasted pretty bad, which, to be honest was a good thing. They made their way to the trash in the end, vs. my belly (and later my thighs). We had a great time though, and this has sparked a whole new Mommy/G cooking duo. We’ve since made pancakes (a breakfast win) and pizza (also a win).

Here are some pics from our cookie makin’ adventure. Yes, the background looks like a mess, but I needed to get the counters cleaned up from the reach of toddler fingers. Knives and 2 year olds don’t really mix ya’ know.

The sous chefs

Cookie stamping is serious business

We kinda had to teach them that you couldn’t just lift the cookie cutter and push it down over the same spot all over again.

K, hard at work

So this is a rolling pin, eh?

This is the face of a girl who’s not afraid to get her hands dirty. Or her eye-brows 🙂

What? Do I have something on my face?

Our cookies. Or cookie blobs.

Enjoying the fruits of their labor.

Cookie making time was promptly followed by two toddlers who ran circles around our house. I’m really not kidding. From the living room, through the kitchen, into the dining room, then back in the living room. And round and round it went. Note to self: next batch of cookies is getting baked in the morning 🙂

We had our pink tree monstrosity cut down last week. G got to watch. He was fascinated.

Look at that smile!

We call this a passed-out beeb

I’ll take ‘Things that make you go “Hmn!”‘ for 100, Alex!

“Fine. If you take my basket, I will sit in yours.”

“There! Now, THAT’S more like it.”

Mr. Potatohead art

G insists on using every block when making a tower. He’s really more of a supervisor. We end up being the builder bees.

Hmn… I guess I won’t be hiring THAT guy to babysit

On Tuesday evening, we went out for Thai Food. I guess this was the first time that G’s noticed someone clearing away empty plates, because when one of the waiters came to take away the empty Spring Roll plate, G immediately asked

“Daddy, what da man doin’?”

We explained to him the concept of taking empty plates away, and he seemed quite content with our explanation. Please note that at no point in time did we use the term “Bus boy”. We actually never put a title on the roll at all. We just explained what the guy was doing and why.

Then later, our waitress came and asked to take away another plate. G protested, because he only wanted the guy to do it. Fun stuff. Going out with him these days is certainly interesting. Let’s put it that way.

S2 is now 2 months old.

Time sure moves fast. Our little dude is growing up fast. In about another week or two I’ll be retiring his NB sized clothes. A part of me is pretty excited to start relieving my home of various sized baby clothes, and another is sad to see them go. It’s just a chapter of my life I won’t experience again.

S2 is spending more and more time awake now. He sleeps on average 13-14 hours per day… but not in a row. That I assure you. We have a pretty predictable routine together, although we don’t have a set nap schedule during the day just yet. He wakes up for the day between 6 and 7, eats, gets his new diaper on, chills out for a little bit and goes down for his morning nap. His morning nap is normally his longest, and could last 3 hours. He spends the rest of the day eating, sleeping, staring out into space… oh and, of course, making dirty diapers. All in all, performing the duties of a wee-baby quite well, and to their fullest extent. His fuss o’clock begins around 5ish, and I’m finding that he’s quite happy to call it a day by 5:30. We torment him occasionally by keeping him up ’till 7 if we go out for dinner, which he’ll tolerate, but isn’t too excited over. On an average night he wakes up twice: sometime around 2am and then again around 4ish. He eats, and conks right back out, and we start the cycle again the next day.

This month has also brought smiles. I gotta tell you, it’s something pretty special when you look down at your kid and he’s looking at you, smiling, like you are his whole world. Those smiles kill ya’, I tell you. Overall he’s a super snugly and chill kid. We don’t bed-share anymore (although he sleeps 3′ away from me in his swing). There are many 2am wake-ups that he feels so good in my arms, I just want to snuggle around him for the rest of the night.

G is still super cool around him. He still asks to hold his brother, wants to help with bath-time, and tries to get his paci back in his mouth. He doesn’t really get to stick it in his mouth successfully, but poor kid sure tries.

Weight: 11lb 2oz

Height: 21.125″

Favorite activity: Staring up at the little lambs on his swing. He gives those guys some admiring smiles

Sweetest moment: Getting a big fat grin mid-nursing.