Summah Lovin

So I think in an unintended reaction to last year's third trimester of pregnancy and subsequent newborn-induced exhaustion, this summer I've packed pretty full of traveling to visit friends and family, weekends full of fun day trips for the kids, and, well, some home improvement projects. Because I can't help it.

June brought (finally!) warm days, but then rapidly emerged into the (oh wait, I like winter more than summer) extreme heat of this week, clocking in at 94 degrees and full sun. Boo. Some days are still bearable though, and if its not too muggy, evenings out on our comfy porch or lying in the grass in our backyard are lovely.

Levi has now (mostly) conquered the potty - although he still assures us that sitting forward on it (he sits backwards for balance) will cause him to fall in. He occasionally gets wrapped up in what he's playing with and forgets- maybe once/week, but we went full-on big-boy undies over Memorial Day weekend and haven't looked back. Which THANK GOODNESS, I couldn't handle my giant-practically-in-preschooler in dirty diapers anymore.

Codorus State Park = best water area ever

 He is also talking in long, drawn-out sentences these days. The other night he was trying to convince me to let him take a shower (after we were saying our prayers and turning off the lights) by naming every body part that was dirty "and my neck, and my elbows, and my belly, and my butt, and my head, and my ears, and my feet, and my toes, and my legs, and ALL of me is dirty, mommy!" He also needs to interrupt while reading books to launch into his own description of what is happening. The Cat in the Hat? Mind-boggling. "But, where is their mommy? They are making a mess! Why is there a kite? The cat is very dirty. And the room is dirty. And those things are running around. And where is the mommy??!"

Speaking of, he seems to sense his role in life a bit more these days. We were discussing something he'd learned at school the other day, when he launched into this story of how he knew that I was coming, so he went and told all of the kids in his class "Watch out! Mommy is COMING!" I'm proud of that, you betcha (mommy's in charge and he knows it, right?) but also every time I think about that I laugh. Completely unrelated to the discussion we were having.

I'm pretty sure he's reached that stage where he unintentionally embarrasses us as parents a lot. Not that

we're embarrassed by him, but that he says things to people without context and it doesn't sound good. I accidentally yanked a hangnail off (was peeling off part of the nail I'd trimmed) on his thumb this morning, and ended up making him bleed. All. day. long. he told everyone we saw "Mommy PINCHED me!!" Thanks buddy. It was an accident. You got to pick your own ugly bandaid. He treated his thumb like it was broken for a good three hours, although I'm sure the stinging stopped after a few minutes.

Theo is growing more adorable by the day - chubby cheeks and all. He finally put on enough weight for the doctor to be satisfied. I've realized that until my kids start eating solid foods, they just don't track on the weight charts like other kids, I guess. Levi dropped way down from the 75th percentile in the early weeks of his life to the bottom of the curve until after he turned one. Theo's drop was quicker, and because of that our

Theo always touches his ear for comfort

pediatrician encouraged that we get him eating more solids more quickly (still no solids before six months, but by 10 months he eats just about everything we do). Between his 9-month visit and his weight check 4 weeks later, he put on almost TWO pounds. He'd put on less than one pound in the previous five months combined. He eats more than me these days. Although I do wonder how much of it gets into his belly and how much of it is just mashed up and distributed evenly on every inch of his exposed skin.

He's not crawling, but he's mastered just about every other way to get around. Scootching backwards, army crawling on his belly, or just spinning on his stomach until he can reach whatever he wants. He's very long and can reach anything he can see close by like this. He is already starting to pull himself up to stand now and then, but mostly is content to grab something close by and stay seated indefinitely.

Tiny man also talks incessantly. While he chews on toys, while he eats, anytime he's near us - I think he thinks he's actually in conversation with us as we're chatting about other things. He still screams when I leave the room. Two more months of breastfeeding and then he'll magically stop that, right? right?? He's also so squirmy - he's happy and plays when he's sitting in your lap, but playing means grabbing your face, twisting around and around, smacking you, bouncing, etc. It's like holding a baby monkey or something. Yeah, I don't know where that example came from.

And to close, two Levi conversations:

Levi: (straining to reach the fan above our bed) Mommy, I want to touch it!
Me: Levi, it's too far away. also, you should NEVER touch a fan.
Levi: why?
Me: Because it could break your hand. It would hurt your fingers very much.
Levi: But mommy, it's so beautiful up there!
(...seriously....what?)

Me: (when discussing Levi's butt-to-regular-sized-toilet-seat ratio) Levi, how big is your butt?
Levi: It's awful.
Me: ( long pause)
Levi: Um, um, um, it's not as big as mommy and daddy's.

How Levi feels about playgrounds

How Theo feels about playgrounds

Camping!

Locker room solution after swimmy lessons:
Put baby IN locker for containment while
changing toddler's clothes. Not a great
idea to remove baby and then put back again
for photo op. 

Delirious with delight (they don't pay me to write words for
nothin') about duckies and fountains and ponds!

What strawberry, mommy?

Almost...there....

Just a spoon for Theo Bideo

Demonstrating technique. a.k.a. eating some of his yummy
chocolate cone. 

Sunshine

This month's post in the form of a narrative stream word-poem:

Warm! Outside! Oh right. need 2T shorts.

baby getting larger...also my bicep. just the right one.

but not large enough. weight check at the doctor's.

Theo. eating. two words most often spoken together.

covered in: peanut butter. peaches. banana. jam. yogurt. even pickles.

Ate goldfish for the first time today. cried when they were gone.

Still stationary. can scootch backwards and around in a circle, but never forward.

Only two teeth. upper gums swollen for a few weeks now.

Boogers. always on me. and drool.

Big boy undies. a couple went down for the count, but surprisingly successful overall.

Lots of running. first skinned knee and split lip.

Also, more boogers.

Herding Cats

It's been so long - but two kids man. Love 'em, but I sit down sometime around 9:30 at night exhausted, not remotely interested in my as-yet-ignored to-do list, and looking to relax for a bit before snuggling with my pillow. I have no complexes about keeping my house clean, completing Pinterest projects, or anything even slightly beyond "fed and clothed." and that's just for me -- for my kids, it's really just "fed." since that takes approximately 85 percent of the day to begin with, ha. 

Levi has been getting more and more...independent, I guess is the right word for it. I expected the age of

three (a week away!) for him to be harder for us as parents. He's less attached to us, has a LOT more words and of course, more opinions. Really, with our genetics, we'd be concerned if anything else were the case :) He now uses words like ectothermic. While doing an alphabet puzzle (shout out to Susan!!) Levi pointed at the puzzle piece shaped like a W and said "look mom, Orcas!" Let me tell you, I learned the word Orca in what, 4th grade?? This kid. It's still so fun watching his imagination develop though, whether its pretending to be a crab in the tub and walking his feet up the wall, pretending to be a dinosaur, or setting his cars up in elaborate crashes. He "parks" every single toy before we leave to go somewhere. Always does things in an orderly fashion, that one. It must be a grandparent (cough cough British cough) trait that skipped a generation and carried through.

Theo is both becoming more delightful and more hard to handle. He'll interact with us with his voice -

laughing and waiting for us to laugh back, or making a sound and waiting for us to repeat it back. He loves to cuddle and play when he's in a good mood, and eat! But he also is practicing biting things - namely me, and it's a constant jumping game when he's nursing with me yanking him away if I think he might bite. ugh. He also has combined his "mommy is my favorite" with some separation anxiety, so if I leave a the building, a room, his line of sight, or stop touching him, he screams bloody murder and won't calm down until I reappear and pick him up.

He's learned to pick up puffs and small bits of food and put them in his mouth after a couple of weeks of trying to convince him to do that himself - he has great fine motor skills, but if I held a puff in my hand out of reach of his mouth, he would grab my hand and pull it to his mouth so he could slurp the puff off my palm.

Even if he got the puffs in his hands, he would just leave them there. For real, sometimes when he ran out of puffs by dropping them on the floor or because I walked away, I'd see him opening his hands and looking disconsolately at the puffs trapped in his grimy palm, but making no move to put them...in his mouth.

He's such a contradictory little person - even though he screeches when I'm around but not holding him and bites, he is the master of bedtime. I go upstairs, change his diaper and put him in jammies, nurse him while I

Yes, he sucks his thumb, against my wishes. Yes, his
face is dirty. Fed, but not clean, remember?

read to Levi, and go put him in his crib. No songs, rocking, mobile turning-on, nothing - and he doesn't fall asleep nursing, he's still wide awake and squirming around while we finish reading in Levi's room. I put Theo in his crib, turn off light, leave room. And he sleeps, every night. I'd say 80 percent of the time without fussing at all, the other percentage fussing two minutes, tops. I thought Levi was good because he would also go to sleep easily at this age, but there was a half-dozen step bedtime routine first. Although I should probably clarify that starting at 18 weeks, we're pretty strict sleep trainers as a rule - the kids are never allowed in our beds, we let them cry it out  after a quick check to make sure they're OK, etc.

And now, some fun conversations with Levi: 

Levi: that bridge had trains and cars.
Me: I like trains and cars. Do you?
L: Yes. They make me steam.
Me; They make you scared?
L: No. They make me steam.
Me: Like a smokestack?
L: Yes.
Me: Do you mean the trains make steam?
L: Trains make steam, but also I make steam.
Me: Oh I see. Does it come out of your head?
L: No. My fingers.

(pause)
L: Also, I not afraid. Of cars or trains. Or kitties.
Me: I think kitties are cute and nice.

L:My friend Mike has a cat. (we know no one in Levi's life who goes by Mike)
Me: ...Did you say Mike?
L: Yeah.
Me: ...is Mike a new friend from school.
L: No.
Me: Where did you meet Mike?
L: Mike winowski!
Me: Ooooh. (realizes he meant Mike Wizowski, from Monster's Inc. the movie) I'm not sure he has a cat.

Levi: Daddy, you have a big butt.
Tim: Well, you have a little tiny butt.
Levi: No, my butt is big and strong. It moves things. Like dirt.

Daddy got a Lego* set for (very late) Christmas

Herding cats, I tell ya. 

The Quintessential "I Have Two Kids" Photo.
Boogies. Food. Angst.

Hello Theo!

Levi's first Easter egg hunt!

*actual Legos, 100 percent real.