Ed in October

I've said recently that it was almost as if a switch went on with Ed when he turned 2 1/2 (almost to the day). Now he is 32 months old and Den and I are just floored. He has decided doing just one 12 piece puzzle is too easy, so he typically does 2 at once, taking all the pieces out and then putting them back together. I bought him some 24 piece puzzles and those still were not challenging enough because the first night he put the puzzle together in no time.

We (anyone who works with him) have been trying to teach him about corner pieces, edge pieces and finding and grouping like pieces. Apparently it's sinking in.

A couple days before this, Eddie and Den were playing with his doodle pro (the thing pictured below) and I don't remember exactly how it happened, other than Eddie saying he wanted to draw an 'E'. The next thing we know, he has every part drawn except the last tail at the bottom. Den and I were separately holding our breath, willing him to know to draw the last line--and he did! We were just amazed. Apparently Cookie has been working with him on this. He didn't seem to think it was a big deal, and I guess why would he.

Oddly, Ed has started to like riding toys. He now likes to ride the airplane around and he likes to ride in his new blue car. Here he is with daddy's shoes on. One area we're not doing so well is potty training. He was well on his way when we left for FLA. I thin our mistake was not having a perceived 'safe' place for him to pee where he didn't feel he was going to fall in. Prior to the trip, he had been asking us to pee and been peeing a couple times/day. Now, it doesn't matter what sticker we offer, he doesn't want to pee. Ugh. He knows when he has to pee too, which makes it all the more frustrating.

Cookie told me to get tough with him, but when I tried making him stay in training pants all morning, it back fired...in a big way. He wouldn't let me put a diaper on, yet kept peeing right through the training pants. It was as if he was holding it until I changed him, then peed again. Argh. Next step is to check out from the library some books (for him--and apparently maybe me) on potty training. I'm just frustrated with myself that we let a good pattern stop.

Well, I'm offically caught up...sort of. Several more posts from the last week, but no longer a month behind. Enjoy the photos, only me and g'parents are likely to trudge through the text I'm guessing :)

Jonesin' for Josie

After such a long time of no pictures, I've got a whole bunch coming. Now if I could only catch up in printing them...Ed has started requesting printed pictures, similar to the one of daddy in the bullet train, so I need to get crankin'.

Josie is really enjoying her jumper chair and still loves bath time. When we used this blue one, she always seemed to try and slide down, so we've now (as of a couple nights ago) switched her to the larger inflatable one we take on trips. Interestingly she freaks when it's in the big bathtub, but is fine when it's on the kitchen counter. Whatever works.

Here Ed is feeding her peas and then below Den is feeding her carrots. She's doing well with the food, but not to get too detailed, her body is having some trouble adjusting to solids and we've had to load up on the apple juice, applesauce, fiber and have a couple sleepless nights while she writhes in pain. Ugh. The ugly side of babyhood.

We think we've passed by the initial bowel problems and now we are dealing with not only wanting just mommy, but wanting to sleep with mommy. Right now, as I type this, she is screaming her guts out. And that's while Den holds her. I really don't know how he is able to hold her while she screams. It's not like she has colic or something and we know her digestive tract is back to work. Den suspects she is at this point just pist that we let her cry for 20 minutes. And as Cookie says, she wants what she wants and she'll hold out til she gets it. Can't wait for the teenage years (and better yet, the preteen years).

I have some more recent photos of Josie to post, but still catching up...

Anna Maria Island--part 6 of our FLA holiday

Some friends/neighbors have a beach house we decided to check out. They said it was very relaxing and they couldn't have been more accurate. This was exactly what we needed. Josie got to break out her bikini, Uncle David got to watch high def TV, Den got internet (but not too much) and I don't know what Lore' and I got except for the beach and being entertained by the kids.

I'm still learning how to feed Josie. But in the bottom picture she decided to take matters into her own hands...literately.

Eddie was still afraid of the water (after the Tybee incident in which he fearlessly let go of my hand, only to be knocked over and rolled around by a wave), but he did let us carry him in and he did stand on the edge of the water a little. I do hope he learns to get back in.

If you ever need a relaxing trip to the beach, this house is the best--fully stocked, great for kids and it's one house from the beach. It's the closest we've ever stayed and man is it ever the way to go.

Brace yourselves for a lot of text on the following posts...it's been a while.

Disney Part 5--yes we took a lot of photos

I take a lot of photos and apparently Aunt Lore' does too. Lots from which to chose. Uncle David had no qualms about toting Josie around and she I think liked the view.
It rained while we were there, but it was pretty hot, so not a big deal. Eddie was having a fabulous time. Being a crocs fan, we spotted these and Ed really wanted them. I hadn't done any (!) shopping, so we got them. I'd been wanting a pair anyway, so Ed was all excited we had matching crocs. There will be snow on the ground and we'll have to convince him not to put crocs on--he really loves these shoes. Sure get out money's worth!
We were in such a rush in the morning we didn't get a group photo on our way in, when the light was perfect, so instead waited until the sun was shinning in our eyes to try and get 2 tired kids to look at the camera.

Disney Part 4 --Following Uncle David's Lead

Being the musician that he is, Uncle David had a good time with these drums and pretty soon a bunch of kids were too, including Eddie. He was particularly fascinated by this long one and stuck his head inside. I was lightly tapping on it and when I wasn't looking some kid came along and really walloped on the drums. Eddie didn't seem to care, but I was appalled.

Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom is my least favorite park at Disney (there are 4 theme parks and 2 (?) water parks). It's kind of like a zoo and a couple rides. But, this was perfect for Eddie. Have I mentioned how nice it was to have Aunt and Uncle with us? Not only for the extra set of hands and photography, but Eddie and J really liked hanging with them and it was fun to have them interact.

No self-respecting zoo would be without a petting zoo and Disney is no different. You take a train where you have to leave behind or fold up your stroller (another reason to bring your own stroller and not rent a Disney one). Getting two kids (one of whom can barely sit up, let alone stand) out of a stroller, while juggling a back pack, a camera, and trying to keep track of everything can be an interesting feat. I was glad I'd put Eddie in this bright blue shirt--he sure was easy to spot.

He picked out a blue brush and had a great time brushing the animals. Most of them were just roaming around there for the touching, but they did have a couple shaded areas with what looked like outdoor kids play equipment for the animals to hang out in a protected zone. A whole lot of them were packed in these areas, out of reach of all the little hands that longed to touch them.

Uncle David did his best to keep Josie out of the hot Florida sun--difficult when the only shade around was for the animals. These animals were so tame. Ed accidently steped on the hoof of this one after he was done brushing it and the animal didn't even acknowledge anything had happened.

Ed thought these cutouts were pretty cool.

Disney Part 2--Donald Day

It's taken me 6 months to understand how long it takes to get 2 kids ready and out the door. The day we went to have breakfast with Donald was a good example. I had planned for us to leave the hotel at 7am and I don't think we left till almost 7:30. We overslept (the first of a developing pattern in October) , as our normally 6/6:30am riser didn't rise then.

Fortunately we were staying close to the Animal Kingdom at the All Star Sports Resort (resort is used loosely). I'm not a fan of the All Star resorts (there are 4 of them), but Lore' snagged $65 rates through AAA--and its hard to argue with that for one night.

Some of you may know, I'm a bit of a Disney fan, but that has dimenshed in recent years as I've not exactly been thrilled with the direction Michael Eiser was sterring Disney. Maybe that will change in the future, but I digress.

So we needed to allow time to drive to the Park (we were going to head straight for the beach)--Disney owns a lot of property, but they make you think you are on more property by making you travel in the most circuitious routes. Then once you park, even if you get the first spot, you have to travel quite a distance to the park entrance and for this breakfast, quite a distance into the park to get to the resturant. I wasn't prepared for the later--it took at least 15 min. to walk from the car to the resturant. The cool thing about this gameplan was that you could enter the park a full hour before it opened, eat breakfast and we already in the park when it opened and not have to stand in a line to get in. I wondered how this would be handled and at the entrance I felt like we were in a VIP line at a hip club, as they had a clipboard and if your name wasn't on it for the early seating, you didn't get in.

So if getting there in time wasn't enough drama, I realized I might have left our tickets in the room, not just the 1 day passes I had foolishly bought from the desk at the hotel for this visit, but our park-hopper, multi day passes from several years ago. If you haven't been in a while, Disney has a new complicated way to suck the money from you. Without going into great detail, the tickets we had from years ago were now quite expensive, and ireplaceable. I was able to get Guest Services to put me in contact with housekeeping and direct them not to clean the room so I could run back after breakfast and check the room. Jump ahead to breakfast, Den casually asks if the tickets are in my wallet. After nearly 10 years together (!), he definitely has my thought process down. Sure enough, there they were. Whew!

This character meal was a departure from the previous night when the characters stayed with us for a while because the resturant just wasn't very crowded. We did get a table off in the corner (I think making a reservation with a 6 month old gets you a corner table so you can nurse without being smack in the middle of the resturant). It was very crowded and each character stayed with us a max of two minutes and it was onto the next table. Talk about having to work a room!

Eddie was so incredibly excited to see Donald. As with the previous night, I missed several shot in which he was absolutely beaming. He was examining Donald beek and really checking out all the characters. We did get some group photos, but we always felt so rushed, like if we didn't hurry, the non-speaking character would slip away without taking a photo. Looking at Josie it cracks me up, she just didn't know what to make of it.

They had a great spread of food, but it was definitely rushed. Yet, we did see Donald and pretty much everyone Eddie had hoped/expected to meet.

Disney

I'm not sure where to begin on this one. Somehow I managed to convince Den (I think via my patented Chinese Water Torture) that we needed a vacation. Further, I convinced Aunt Lore' and Uncle David that they needed to take a vacation with us. Actually I don't think the Disney part was a hard sell, it was leaving Disney to go to the beach that was the harder sell...but they went for it :)
It all started with g'parents Ohio teaching Eddie the Mickey Mouse song...M-I-C (see ya real soon)-K-E-Y (why? because we like you), M-O-U-S-E, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, etc. Well, we had been given several Mickey Mouse stuffed animals, puppets, etc. that helped start the conversation.

Then somehow it came up about going to see them and so I asked Eddie if he wanted to go see Mickey and Donald and he said he did. Without prompting, that night he told Den he wanted to get on a plane and go see them (I'd told him about needing to fly on a plane). Next thing you know, we're on a plane (per previous post) to as Eddie would say, "go see Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck". I had sepnt a couple weeks explaining that Mickey would be as tall as Mommy, that Donald would be as tall as Daddy and that Pluto and Goofy would just be super tall, probably taller than either mommy or daddy. I told him they might want to give him a hug, but that he didn't have to if he didn't want to.

I also knew that at age 2 1/2, he was borderline too young to go. So I carefully planned to spend just 24 hours at Disney. If he hated it, we were only there a short time and if he loved it, I had someone to aide and abet me for future trips. We booked a character dinner the first night and because he really wanted to meet Donald, a breakfast in Animal Kingdom the next morning. Game plan was to then tour Animal Kingdom a bit before heading to the beach.

In short, Eddie LOVED it! He now asks a minimum of once a week when we can get in a taxi, get on a plane, and go see "Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto"--said really fast, but not so fast as to be slurred into one word. When we first got home, he asked every day. But I digress.

Our flight got in early and yet I managed to waste an hour because I noticed not only the check engine light, but also some other exclamation point on in our rental and worried about a 2 hour drive to the beach. After driving the rental company folks crazy with checking out every mini-van they had available, I decided to stick with the Toyota Sienna we had. I think Den was too embarrased to do anything and made me (rightfully) handle it all. Come to find out it could have been the tires low on air or something, but the exclamation point disappeared about 15 minutes away from the airport (the check engine light never went away).

We ate dinner at the Swan and Dolphin complex. It's a pretty empty place for character dinners, as it's just not in demand the way the ones are that Mickey attends. I figured this would be a good chance to gauge Eddie's reaction. He was so excited when he saw them and I asked if he wanted to hug Goofy and he did. He kept playing with all the exergerated features and looking into their mouths (did he know that's how they could see?). I know he's not exactly smiling in these shots, but that is more because it was so difficult with all the dishes and such to have a good picture...he was having a great time--we are so thankful that A. Lore' and U. David were around to snap so many photos, otherwise, with wrangling 2 kids, we might not have had any.

Good kid that he is, he wanted a second cupcake and I told him he had to wait. By the time we went back, they were all gone, so he settled for another desert without protest...boy we are lucky to have such a laid back kid. Course what kid is going to protest when they are allowed not just one, but two deserts.

In case you're wondering, my delicious watermelon martini set us back 10 dollars! I would have had a second, but good grief!

Almost a month later...

I can't believe I'm posting about pictures that are almost a month old, but I guess I'm just that far behind. It's 9pm on a Sunday and everyone is in bed--Den went to bed at 7:30, as last night was kinda rough. I've just got too much in my head to go to sleep, so I'll update the blog and blame any typos on lack of sleep.
Eddie wanted to feed baby J and still does on ocassion, but he tends to jam it in her mouth a little too far and it makes me nervous, so it's not something we encourage. I love the concentration he is showing here. I think she is recovering from one such jab to the back of the throat. This is I think the second or third day of feeding.

I have a similar picture of Eddie when he was learning to sit up. She's really quite good at this point about sitting up, but when this photo was taken, it was more of a sit her up and watch her fall kind of thing, so she always needed something to keep her in 'position'. Now, about a month later, when she falls, it's usually forward and far more controlled. I will say she's not hit her head nearly as much as Eddie had by this point. He still hits his head more. I don't know why it is at this point. Then, I could blame myself for not being vigilant enough.

He had already fallen off the bed at least once and she's only fallen off once and that was into a bunch of pillows and she didn't even peep about it (that was a week or so ago). I actually called the doctor once because he fell backwards onto the hard wood floor and I was worried. I can just see him now blaming his mom's lack of attention to anything related to early head trauma. He is quite worried about bumping his head., so I guess I have slightly scarred him. I do find it fascinating, the things that stick with them and have an impact that we as parents do (or don't do) and the things that are insignificant. In most cases it's difficult to tell at the time which category your or your child's actions will fall--impacting or not.

The Here and Now

I thought I'd post the latest photos and catch up with the other posts as I can. Took the kids to the local chuch pumpkin patch this past weekend--what a different experience than last year.
Wrangling two kids when one side of the patch is on a busy road and there are people everywhere and your kid is lobbing mini pumpkins here and there and your other kid is befuddled by all the fuss. is different than chasing one 18 month old around.

We never did get a nice shot of both kids in the pumpkins--but it wasn't for lack of trying. Eddie was trying to scale the pumpkins like he was climbing a rock wall and Josie didn't really want anything to do with them. All in all it's a nice place to go as it's just down the street from us, it supports a non profit the church passes the money to, the prices are great and Eddie can load up on lots of different little ones, in this case, for Mommy, Daddy, Eddie, and Josie.


Without fail, Eddie tries to pick up the biggest pumpkin he can. Then he moves onto some others. He actually tried to get me to help him with one that was about half his height and probably weighted as much as me.
While Eddie was napping on Tues, Josie decided it would be fun to have some time with mom...even if mom had planned to nap herself. Without going into too much detail about Josie's bowel habits, she was constipated for 2-3 days, making for some truly miserable nights for the three of us (Eddie mostly slept fine). Den and I were going to bed at 9pm for 3 nights in a row, just to get a couple hours logged. By Tuesday night, we were feeling like medical interns got more sleep than we did.

She's not crawling yet, but she's all but there. If she weren't the second child, we'd probably be egging her on a little more, but she'll figure it out one of these days.
This was what greeted me tonight--I had to whip out the camera. Then Cookie told me that the ducks (there was a fourth Eddie was holding) were us (Eddie, Josie, Mommy, and Daddy) and the frogs were Cookie and the 2 other nannies Cookie hangs out with. Cracked me up.
As soon as I snapped this photo, Eddie came running over, wanting a photo of Mickey, Donald Duck and him. btw, Donald Duck is ANY duck, because we've had a hard time finding the real donald duck.

Hopefully most posts to come soon.

Six Month update

These pictures demonstrate what Josie did on her 6-month birthday. Originally she was scheduled for a doctor's appointment, but that was moved to the following week so we could go to Disney World! Here she is sleeping in daddy's arms, who is also sleeping. Eddie and I read a bunch of books on the flight. Since I'm writing this about 3 weeks after her 6th month, it's difficult to separate then and now, but I'll try...



As of the 3rd, she had tried rice cereal--refer to my post of Aug. 2005 for the description of baby rice cereal, but given her issues with dairy, I wasn't sure how to proceed with food, so I just kept with the rice.



She was just starting to get up on all fours in preparation for crawling. She has also been able to turn on the acquarium in her crib. I had to raise the adjustable exersaucer up a level because she was getting too tall. She was still solidly in size 3-6 months with 90% of her clothes.



I realized during this character dinner that I had forgotten to take much in the way of pictures of her on her birthday. Here she is being charmed by goofy. I wasn't expecting that they would pay any attention to her, but every character made a point of going up to her----in the same way that humans make a point of going up to her.



She loves watching Eddie--who cracks her up. It's fun that he entertains her. Our continued challenge is that she is starting to want to play with toys and he doesn't quite get that she can play with toys and that "eddie's" toys are really toys for her. I am glad that I didn't put as much of his infant toys away and have gradually introduced him, lest it seem like an onslaught of toys for her (not him) (if you ask Dennis we've had more of an avalanche of toys hit our living room and they are spreading all over the house). I have a hard time parting with toys...



At the doctor's visit (on the 10th), she got five shots. It was supposed to be 4, but we gave her the flu shot then too. She was already fussy because she was hungry and tired, but boy those shots didn't do her any favors. Fortunately this time she had little to no reaction from the actual shot (last time she swelled up around the injection sites). Next visit at nine months will be no shots, but a draw of blood for lead testing.

The stats were: Weight: 15 pounds, 2.6 ounces. This puts her at 35% By comparison, Eddie was about 20 pounds at this point. Was was at 50% for height, which was 25 3/4 inches. And her head was 60-70% at 16 3/4 inches. They have this new gizmo for measuring height that is this pre-measured roll-up pad, similar to how they measure fish. It's pretty cool and seems more reliable than drawing a line at their head, holding them as still as possible and then drawing a line at their feet and measuring in between. Easier too.

Doctor was pleased with her development. Asked if she could move things from one hand to the other. We had no idea. He put a binder clip in one hand and she reached over with the other hand to grab it. Pretty neat science experiment. He started to give her a business card and then worried about her poking herself. This is a man with 4 kids and a FIFTH! on the way. She didn't quite know her name yet, but the doctor didn't expect that. She basically knew or could do just about everything else he asked.

He asked if she was sitting up and at this point, she had just started to sit up and then promptly fall over. For the doctor, she stayed sitting for at least 10 seconds (now she is at several minutes). He thought that was great. And she immediately pushed up on all fours when placed on her tummy. Eye is still gunky from a blocked tear duct, but doctor said it should go away with time and drops we are supposed to put in her eyes. She was making whatever noises they were supposed to then (now--in the last couple days), she sounds like she is having entire conversations with herself. It's pretty funny.

We'll see when I have time for the next update.

I Made IT!!!!!

First of all, my major bone to pick with blogger is that you can't (to my knowledge) control the order in which your photos post. So these first 2 are actually the last two. Now in theory, I should just upload them in a sort of reverse order, but with being about 8 posts behind, it's all about getting the photos up.



I had as my goal with both kids to nurse until they were 6 months (and would start solids). I made it---as Josie started solids just before we left for FLA --on the 28th. With Eddie I made it till 10 months (albeit with a lot more formula than Josie ever had--she's had more mixed in with her cereal than anything else). If Eddie hadn't been such a crappy sleeper, I'm sure I could have made it longer, but Den's parents came to stay with us at Christmas the year he was born and they were actually thrilled (or so they said) to get up with him at 5am, so there went that.

Josie is a little bit better sleeper and knowing now how much formula costs, I think I'll plow ahead as long as possible.

She did great on the solids--I think she had a bit more of the tongue thrust reflex--a baby apparently automatically /naturally sticks its tongue out as a safeguard and this can make the first meal a bit of a challenge. She took a little while longer to get the hang of it than Eddie, but she sure was grabbing for the spoon in a hurry.



This was taken the afternoon before her solids in her new Ohio U. shirt.
This photo reminds me a bit of Eddie. With him we had borrowed a highchair from the neighbors and while nice, it took up too much real estate. Being 2nd time parents, we just used Eddie's booster seat. Man, I can only imagine any subsequent children in any family--after you've done it once, we've got this whole attitude of 'as long as she's not complaining, everything is fine---and even if she isn't complaining, everything still could be fine'. Fortunately we don't get much complaining from our kids.
This is actually her first taste. I did video tape it, but to be honest, only because I'd video taped Eddie's first meal and I wanted to be fair/consistent. She wasn't quite sure at first...

But then, oh boy. This reminds me of that rock band..KISS. Den says it's Gene Simmons. Lots of people comment on her tongue and how she always has it out...well, here you go...

That's about all I can manage for tonight. I have about 25 more pictures to post...sometime this weekend. Have also made a post about strollers (earlier in Sept. and about our friend's book, also earlier in Sept.).

Hopefully this machine will hold out long enough to get the rest of the posts up...Den is kicking me off so we can back up the computer.

Update...Still no Photos

This has to be the longest I've gone without posting--certainly of no pictures! We ordered a computer last night. It's not due to ship til Nov. 1. We've also ordered a new power supply, which will hopefully mean our old computer is operational sooner than the November arrival of its replacement--if Den et al have diagnosed it correctly. I might cave and start posting again with pictures just because I'm getting such a huge backlog of posts to make.

Den and I are passing in the night and between the 2 of us, have a meeting every night this week. He's also trying to replace his 15 year old Honda Accord and I'm trying to wear him down into buying a freezer. Busy times. The kids are doing well. I'll save the kid update info (which is what you really want) for the posts with pictures.

The Dog Ate My Homework

Here it is, another pictureless update...but I have a good excuse: Our home computer has died. Den thinks all the data is there and that it is likely a power supply issue, which would hopefully be a less than $100 fix. Actually i secretly hope its more expensive than (still w/ all our data preserved) that and we could get a new machine...as you may remember, we've pretty much had troubles w/ it right out of the box.

I'm pulling Ed out of preschool--every day he begs not to go and that's no good---there's much more than that, but in a nutshell. And I feel good about the decision...not to say I won't second guess, but I've yet to start down that path.

He had a GREAT time at Disney. And yahoo!, he seems to like to travel.

Josie has moved onto pears--those will be the first pictures I post, promise. Speaking of, she is calling for me. I know I owe a six month update. Maybe I'll save that for after the doctor on Thurs...maybe by then I'll have a working computer (this is my work machine, not the best locale for personal photo storage).

Because I Said So

Den said I needed to update the blog. So I"m interupting my work to post that I have nothing to post. That is, I have no pictures at the moment. In another couple days, stand by for photos of Josie's first meal (yay!), Eddie at Disney, yes THAT Disney, and whatever else I find on the camera. Oh and someday I'll make my stroller post...

So we are still alive.