Sleeping like a baby

Here comes the duckie!

Here is a little video of Sera and Simon interacting.  

He's starting to make noises other than crying, so that is super fun!

Camouflage

Rebellion

Face off

The breadstick is crying

We had some bread sticks (hard like pretzels, from a box) with supper and some of them had broken.  All through supper Alice was talking about how the broken bread stick was crying and wanted a hug from its mommy.

Undies!

We sent Alice to School today in a pair of Dora underwear. She was so excited! We also sent her with four extra pairs of underwear and four extra pairs of jeans.  Let the official potty training begin!

Update:
She had a successful day at school and never once peed on Dora.  Her teachers said she would go to the potty whenever another kid did.

At home however...We prompted her to use the potty every 20 minutes, but she kept saying no.  She peed on her pants twice in the hour and half she was home with us before bed.  Strategy for tomorrow: Sitting on the potty is not an option.

"I wanna poop."

At the beginning of her bath, Alice told me she wanted to poop. This is significant because it was the first time she told us directly that she wanted to poop in the potty. Previously we usually caught her in the act and rushed her in there and put her on the potty.  I was taking a video because she was going to give herself a shower and I thought that would be entertaining, so just by chance this potty training development was caught on camera.  View the exciting footage here. It's kind of hard to understand, but when she's on the potty she's talking about marshmallows (she gets 6 for pooping on the potty).

Bond Park

Alice slept in and then didn't really nap. We didn't want to waste a beautiful day, so we went to Bond Park to wear her out.  I carried Simon around in the pouch.

A note on Alice and bridges.  I can remember when I was still uncertain and ambivalent about whether or not I should have kids.  Zac and I used to hike a lot back then, and one day we were at Umstead Park and a family with some little kids approached.  The kids were so excited to go over a little bridge, and I thought, this is what having kids can do for me.  It can make these boring hikes fun again.  Alice has not failed us in this regard: every bridge is super exciting and she often goes back and forth a couple of time.

She seems so grown up, just sitting there. But she's still our little monkey. 

She fell right asleep when we got home. 

Jordan Lake

Today was a great day.

It started with Zac and Alice's routine of making the coffee together:

After breakfast, I took Alice with me to the grocery store while Simon slept on Zac.  The whole way there, every store or house we passed, Alice asked, "Is that the grocery store?" and I replied "Nope."  Thankfully it's only about 10 minutes to the store.  Alice behaved incredibly well (this is not always the case on grocery store trips.)  We looked at the pumpkins and scarecrows (oddly placed above snowmen) at the entrance to the store, and also spent some time in the Halloween aisle, much to Alice's delight.  She was particularly interested in the large spiders.

I bought fried chicken at the store, and we gave Alice a whole leg for the first time ever.  She did a great job and ate everything but the bone and gristle (as documented in this little video clip).

After lunch, she asked to take a nap (which was the plan anyway, but I like it when she also realizes she needs a nap).  Simon also had some lunch, after napping all morning, and was all smiles afterwards.

Then, since the weather was unusually hot (projected high of 90), we decided to go to Jordan Lake and let Alice get in one last swim.  We went swimming a lot at the beginning of the summer, but hadn't gone since Simon was born.  Alice did great.  She's not shy about the water, and will continue playing even as her lips turn blue from cold.

If that wasn't enough, here's a little video of us at the lake.

Men at rest

Alice's new pillow

Recently, Alice decided she needed a pillow when sleeping.  She must have finally seen a critical mass of beds to know there ought to be a pillow in hers.  We had a little blue couch pillow that we'd been using for the last several days, but seeing as how her need for the pillow was not diminishing, Zac ordered a washable toddler pillow and pillow cases online.  After supper, I asked Alice to take the clothes out of the dryer and put them in the basket (great fun!) and she found her new pillow.  I took a little video (click here to watch).  The video is cut short because my phone ran out of memory space.

Duck tasting

Fuzzy with a hint of yellow and drool.

The shoes feat

Without my really noticing it, Alice learned to put on her shoes herself.  It first came to my attention a couple of days ago, when Zac was getting her ready for school and put her shoes on her.  She sat back down, said "I can do it!" and took them off, then put them back on herself.  Here's a video of the feat from this morning.

Monkey paw

Simon is starting to grasp objects.  This still seems to be fairly accidental.

Great timing

I realize this is probably confirmation bias (as in I don't notice all the times this stuff doesn't happen) but I think the kids have great timing.  Examples:

Simon knows to wake up right when I'm finally in a position to be productive. 

Simon likes to spit up the most after I've changed him into a fresh shirt. 

He spoils cute outfits quicker than less appealing outfits. 

Alice will either not nap or take an absurdly late and long nap if we have plans that afternoon. 

Marshmallows

Zac told Alice she would get to eat marshmallows if she pooped in the potty.  Obviously misunderstanding, Alice made a face and said, emphatically, "I don't eat poop!"

Later, having correctly understood the concept and inspired by the promise of said marshmallows, Alice was determined to poop on the potty.  As in, she was naked and refusing to get in her bath until she pooped, but still having trouble staying focused and sitting on the potty.  All this eventually led Zac to declare: "Alice, if you poop on the floor there's no marshmallows."

"Where's the trash?" and other stories from a day in Burlington

The afternoon was looking bleak: Alice was not napping.  She had slept in, so Zac had taken her to the park that morning to try and wear her out so she would nap on time (noon) in order for us to leave for Burlington at a reasonable time.

But she did not nap.  We though, OK, she'll nap in the car on the way there.  She finally fell asleep, raisin box in hand, when we were a mere 12 minutes away, so she only got a micro-nap.

We met Grandpa Arcaro and family in Graham to see an exhibition called "The Art of the Brick."  Basically, this guy, Nathan Sawaya, makes sculptures using Legos.  Alice was really into looking at the sculptures, although she clung pretty tightly and kept saying she was scared.  She pointed at everything and wanted to see it all.

After seeing the exhibition, we drove to Burlington. As soon as we went inside and she saw the stairs, she said she wanted to go up.  When asked why, she said she wanted to see the airplane.  Three or four months ago, when we were there last, she was playing upstairs in the play room and knocked down a blow-up airplane that was hanging from the ceiling.  It was a big story of hers for a while, repeating, "I knocked it down.  Airplane" for a while afterwards.  So it was interesting that she remembered it.  We went upstairs and she touched (gently) the airplane, which had been hung back up.  She also played the guitar, which made her really happy since her music teacher at school plays the guitar.

The highlight of the afternoon was that she got to play in her first leaf pile.  Luckily, her aunt Eleanor was around to show her how to do it right. (Click here for video).  I think the most fun and rewarding part of having kids is seeing them take such joy in things that I've simply outgrown.  Although I know a leaf pile is theoretically fun, I just can't have the same fun as a child, except vicariously by watching her and remembering.  Everybody says children are our future, but they are also a link to our past.

When Alice came in from playing in the leaves, she had some stuck in her hair.  I was holding Simon on the couch, so I took the leaf bits out of her hair, handed them to her, and told her to put them in the trash.  I knew she didn't know where the trashcan was in this house, but I wanted to see what would happen.  Here's what happened:  She took the leaf bits in her hand and circled the kitchen.  When she didn't see a trashcan, she looked up at Tom and said, "Where's the trash?"  He opened the cupboard door that contains the trash, and she put the leaf bits in.

This incident made me happy.  Let me explain why.  First of all, Alice obeyed and followed directions.  Secondly, she was tasked with a problem (finding a trashcan in an unfamiliar place) and she first tried to do it herself (by circling the kitchen looking for it).  She drew on previous knowledge (kitchens have trashcans, mom wouldn't be asking me to throw this away if there wasn't one).  When her problem proved more complex than originally anticipated, she asked for help.  She also identified the correct person to ask for help (the owner of the house).  She wasn't afraid to interact with another adult and she didn't come back to me with her problem when she recognized someone else could help.  Finally, she followed through.  When shown the trashcan, she put the leaf bits in it then went on to other things.

Of course, it doesn't always happen this way.  But it's nice to know that she's capable of this sort of process.  I think at that age I would have been way too shy to interact so confidently with adults who were not my parents.  Day care is paying off.

The other interesting thing of the visit was that it was the first time Alice sat at the table.  In the past, we've always brought her high chair or the booster seat with a tray.  This time, we just brought the booster seat and she sat at the table like a regular kid.  She scarfed down the asparagus, enjoyed the fries, and made pretty good progress on her hamburger.

Since supper was so late, we didn't leave until around 8pm.  She was pretty wound up in the car, telling her new narrative, "I knocked down the airplane.  We tied it back up."  But she eventually passed out, so much so that she didn't even wake up when we brought her in the house and changed her diaper and put on her pajama pants.  She came to for just a moment, to ask for her pillow, then she sunk back into a much-deserved sleep.

Today's smile

Doing the time

Here's a link to a little video of Simon doing his tummy time.

He lasted about 4 minutes and promptly fell asleep afterwards. He does a good job on tummy time, but it's hard to time it right so he doesn't spit up too much or cry too much.