Curious George

First of all, we have a lovely new camera which was a gift from Grandma W and Grandad B. It is awesome and doesn't have the nasty delay our old camera had. It's the perfect thing for when the twins arrive. It's also better with those indoor photos and since winter is here and the twins are arriving soon, that's probably where most of the photos will be. We had tons of opportunities to test it out during the holidays and I got a few good pictures of LR with the family. Unfortunately, LR got a little cold during their stay, but it cleared up after only a couple of days. He got to go see their plane when they left and he's been obsessing about seeing the "big jet planes" since. Speaking of obsessions... LR has a new favorite show. Curious George is awesome. We went to a George themed birthday party of a friend of his a few months ago. He left the party with a goody bag of George stuff which he didn't appreciate at the time, but he does now. The best is a big foam yellow hat. LR can pretend he's the man in the yellow hat now.

LR's imagination is growing every day. Grandma Nese bought LR some adorable Gymboree gloves. They are raccoons with the thumb creating the bottom of the mouth and in between the main part of the mitten and the thumb is an extra piece of red material which is the tongue. LR was standing in his tower eating some grapes when I grabbed the raccoon mittens and started making the raccoon "eat" the grapes. Of course, with no where to go, the grapes had to go back into the bowl, so I had the raccoon spit the grape out while saying "bleh." LR thought it was just about the funniest thing ever. He wanted to put on a mitten and play too. Aunt K and I took turns playing with him and the game must have lasted at least 20 minutes. He laughed so hard that Aunt K and I couldn't help laughing along with him. We made our raccoon characters spit the grapes out for various reasons, but the basic retching sound got the biggest laughs. We had been having a hard time getting LR to keep his mittens on outside, but not anymore!

NOTE: The au pair arrives today! I can't wait to meet her in person. We'll call her N for now.

Ouchie

The following is an excerpt of a conversation I had with LR yesterday after he walked into a door frame during a game of chase with Grandma Nese.

Me: Did you hit your head?
LR: Hit head. *sniff*
Me: Where did you hit your head?
LR: On the wall.

Then LR got off my lap and walked over to the wall to show me where exactly he had hit his head. He and the wall recovered quickly.

Hair Cut

This post is way overdue, I know. So in recent news, LR got a professional haircut for the first time in a very long time. I was tired of chasing him around with the Norelco razor three nights in a row to get a crappy version of a buzz cut. I could never get around the ears or the neck! Last time I took a divot out of the top of his head and I realized one of the plastic tines had broken and was scraping his scalp with each stroke. Nice. On the recommendation of a friend, I took him to Snip-its, a kids only barber shop. Imagine a Disney barber shop and you're pretty much there. Each cutting station has its own TV where they show a relatively lame Snip-its branded cartoon with Snips the Scissors, the head of the Snip-its gang. Anyway, when he first sat down he got to play with bubbles. Then she brought out the razor and he started to freak out. Then he cried. I gave him a lollipop, which they have a huge stash of, and immediately realized my mistake as it was quickly coated with hair clippings. *blech* So I held his hands to keep him from reaching up and getting cut and tried to talk to him about how well he was doing. At one point I said, "I know... it's torture," to which the nice lady cutting his hair replied, "we don't use words like 'cut' or 'torture' so that the kids will want to come back." While I understood the reasoning, 1. LR doesn't know the meaning of the word, 2. he wasn't paying any attention to what I was saying, 3. it was like torture since I had to restrain him during a scary procedure. Anyway, it was worth the premium I paid for a fast, nice looking haircut. For a few days afterward, he asked about whether or not we were going to get his hair cut again. I reassured him by saying that his hair was nice and short and he didn't need another hair cut for a few months. Now I catch him saying "nice, short hair" every once in a while.

So the first picture in this post is of Daddy playing "we're snails" with LR. LR always wants to chase Daddy when he gets home from work. Daddy is almost always accomodating, but on this particular night, Daddy was pretty tired. Instead he told LR they were going to play "snails." LR sat down next to Daddy and mimicked him. When Daddy started to scoot toward Daddy, "chasing" him like a snail, LR jumped up and ran away. Daddy had to convince him that snails don't run, they scoot. LR came back and played for another minute, but lost interest quickly. I laughed the entire time at Daddy's attempt to keep play time quiet. Commendable effort though!

The second picture is of me pointing the camera straight down after Daddy asked LR where the babies are. LR definitely knows where they are! I have so many pictures to post, but I'm going to let them come out with a bunch of follow up posts. I need to cover his new Curious George obsession, his Raccoon mittens, and his nice visit with the family over Thanksgiving.

Big Bedtime Success

So it's 6:39am and LR is still not awake yet. Daddy's still not awake either. The only reason I'm awake is because when I woke at 5:15, I was so excited that he was sleeping through that I couldn't get back to sleep. And I started thinking about baby names and then it was all over.

Daddy put him to sleep last night and he hasn't been out of bed since. *smile* This is the first time since we moved him from the crib to a big-boy-bed that he's slept through the night - and it's all thanks to our new bedtime routine. Frustrated with the hour long struggle to get him to sleep and knowing that the au pair and the twins are coming soon, I was trying to figure out an alternative. Daddy was convinced we'd need to lock his door and let him scream it out. I couldn't bring myself to do it, so I looked online for suggestions. On babycenter.com I found a little article describing how to put kids to bed without using fear. I think the line that interested me most was the one that described fear as having unpredictable results. Would he hate being in his room at any point during the day if we locked him in? Would he get angry and resentful around bedtime? Even though I knew it would "work," I didn't want to put any of us through that.

So the article went on to describe a bedtime game where he has to have his head on his pillow to receive a goodnight kiss and a tuck in. Then you leave the room. He obviously will follow and you have to turn around and take him back to bed. Then you act surprised that the bed is empty. Well in practice I had to alter the game slightly, but LR giggled his way through the routine 2 nights ago. He played sometimes and tried to figure out ways to get me to come back without having to get back in bed, but after and hour and a half at 10pm sharp, he fell asleep on his own. It was huge victory and he only woke once during the night. There was no screaming or crying and even though I was exhausted by the end, I knew we were headed the right direction.

Last night it took an hour instead of an hour and a half and LR was asleep by 9:15 instead of 10. I talked to a friend yesterday who was doing something similar with her 2 year-old and she said that after a week they could tuck him in and he would stay. The article also indicated that a week was all it would take. Crossing my fingers, but it's 7am now and he's still asleep...

Where are the babies?

Note: Finally was able to post pictures in the Halloween post. See below. The picture at the left is of LR playing with a ticklish card that Gigi sent for Halloween.

LR has definitely figured out where the babies are. I can't remember if I blogged about it before or not, but we have a game we play in the evenings sometimes with his stuffed bunny, Rye the Bunny. LR runs out of his room, picks imaginary vegetables from the floor in the hallway, runs back into his room and feeds Rye. He picks carrots, lettuce, and corn typically, calling out what he's feeding Rye as he does it. He also makes the noise of Rye eating for him.

Well, 2 days ago while Daddy and LR played "tow truck, dump truck" on LR's rug, LR decided the babies needed milk. I was sitting in the glider watching the fun when LR ran out of the room, picked imaginary milk from the floor, and ran back in to feed the babies by poking me in the belly. He made eating sounds and then ran back out to pick carrots, then lettuce, then corn. The babies were very hungry.

Team Support

There is a tradition at Tufts where students paint the cannon on the hill. Often it's for an event or celebration. Groups carefully stake out the night of the planned painting, check around campus to see who else has made noise about painting the cannon, then paint and protect the cannon the rest of the night. The rugby team decided to do just that the other night in honor of making it to the D3 final 4 and managed to get a few pictures of their stellar work.

In the second picture you can see they painted "Kara Jr." on the back of the cannon. I picked up the photo from one of the team member's postings on Facebook. The caption said, "represent the babies." I love my team.

Dirty Cucumber

LR has started to get a little sensitive about food and dirt. Like his cousin Bud, he's started asking to have his hands wiped when they get sticky or dirty while eating. For that reason he's getting better with a fork and spoon. He still gets frustrated and goes back to shoveling food in with his hand and then wiping it after each bite on his shirt. Recently we've been giving him cut up cucumber which he loves. When he finishes his portion, he'll ask for some from the salad bowl which typically has dressing on it. The vinaigrette that we've been using has spice which to LR looks suspiciously like dirt. He inspects each piece I fish out for him, announces that it's dirty, and makes me wipe it off. I keep telling him it's spice and not dirt, but he clearly doesn't believe me.

Yesterday Daddy took LR to the doctor since on Sunday he complained that his ear hurt. The doctor said there was some fluid behind his ears, but that they're not infected. We have to go back in a month to check them again. I just want his cold to be over soon. He's better now about having his nose wiped because the constant dripping makes him uncomfortable, but he still doesn't love it. The cold weather doesn't help either. When we go outside he's like a faucet because of the cold air. With rugby finished we're not spending quite as much time running around outside, but then he's not wearing out as quickly as he should and bedtime is still an exercise in patience.

Halloween

We had a great time trick or treating and LR really got into the swing of it. We practiced during the day with his pumpkin basket. We'd knock on the door to the garage and then I'd pretend to open it. He's say the right words and I'd put a lollipop in his basket. Then he took it out and ate it. For that reason we only practiced twice.

Daddy came home just in time to go out. LR was ready to go in his skeleton costume that Daddy picked out for him. The weather was perfect in the high fifties, so the costume kept him just the right temp since it was sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Only when we got outside did I realize that an all black costume at night was a bad idea so near a busy road. Daddy and I stuck close by his side though, so it wasn't a problem.

At the first door, LR tried to back out, but Daddy rang the door bell and our lovely neighbor and mother to our baby sitters opened the door. LR changed his mind as soon as he saw her, climbed the steps and said "trick or treat!" She put a candy in his pumpkin and when prompted he said "thank you!" Then he wanted to go in her house. We got him to go back out to the sidewalk by lighting his way with flashlights. We each had one. LR with his little plastic one, me with an LED, and Daddy with the Mag light. I think he was just thrilled to be walking around in the dark.

We hit about 6 houses and LR did the right thing at each door. He definitely tried to grab more out of bowls that were held out to him, but otherwise did okay. The only other glitch was when we saw a house with spooky decorations. LR wanted to see what was going on, but halfway up the long staircase he heard the audio recording playing and turned into my legs claiming "scary." I picked him up and said "Don't worry. We won't go to the scary house," and turned and walked back down the stairs. The rest of the night he fixated on it. Right up until bed time he was saying "Don't worry. Go scary." I assured him each time that we would not return to the scary house.

All in all, we had a great time. LR wanted to break into his candy as soon as we got home, of course, but it was bath and then bed time.

The Difference Between Twins and Singletons

Here is a picture of SwingDaddy and Lady M's Halloween pumpkins from this year. They are expecting their second child a few months after the twins. Their pumpkins are very happy pumpkins.



No joke. These are our pumpkins from this Halloween. Daddy's is the bigger one. See the difference?






Tomorrow I'll blog all about LR's Halloween adventures.