Pre-christmas December

Catch up time...

We had a great December. Isaac had several visits with Santa, which seemed to serve him well on Christmas morning. It seems that Santa understood when he whispered "Diesel" and "all the engines".

We also got to have cousin Benny come over for a while so his parents could go out. We had a lot of fun.

William continues to be super cute and super chubby. He just started to crawl, so I fear that some of the chubbiness might start to melt away. He is nine months old and wearing 18month clothes. Some of those are a little tight, though.

He seems to always need something in his mouth. Poor playmobil girl did not know what hit her (or bit her).

He still has the helmet, but seems to be making great progress. We are optimistic that the helmet should be staying on the shelf soon.

Girls

Isaac and I had a good conversation in the car. I think that this is the beginning of many more open communications between mother and son. It began with me asking about a female friend at daycare. He told me that she pushed him. Then he mentioned another girl who has pushed him. We talked about how to respond to pushing (I was careful not to mention that we should not push back for fear of the power of suggestion-he does not need any suggestions for that). We discussed and practiced say: "Please don't push me" (he did great). Then he said the following:

"Girls aren't good for me. I don't like to play with girls, they push me. Boys are good for me. They don't push me. Boys are fun to play with."

YES!!! Just the attitude that we have been aiming for. Keep those girls at a distance until his twenties. I suspect that we still might have to resort to our original plan of assisting the development of social awkwardness (should not be hard since we can easily lead by example there), wearing the same clothes for the whole week, and wearing a coat at all time to cover said clothes.

When I grow up, I will be...

Tonight we were looking at a picture of Jesus as a boy and talking about him growing up. Isaac said that he is going to get bigger and become a horse. I asked him what he will do then and he said live in a barn, eat hay and become a cow. He proceeded to rattle off all the other farm animals that he will become after that. I think it might be tricky to impress on him that being born in a stable/barn is not the greatest thing in the world. Maybe next Christmas he will understand that Jesus was not the luckiest kid in the world in that respect.

A Witch

Isaac and I were just discussing William's imminent transition to crawling (or at least it seems reasonably imminent). I asked Isaac what William will do when he starts crawling, in hopes of helping him anticipate the toy-snatching that will ensue. He replied that William will not be a baby and that he will be a witch. Who knew?

Yesterday morning, Aleks woke up before the boys and began to hear odd noises upstairs. First he heard Isaac singing to himself (Old McDonald and some other classics). Then he started to hear the bear singing in William's crib. William is not capable of pulling it to make noise, so he got suspicious. Turns out Isaac had woken up and climbed into the crib with William. He was talking to him and telling him to wake up. Aleks got Isaac out and the amazing thing is that William still remained in the crib and slept a bit longer. William has become a much deeper sleeper since we put the boys in the same room.

In other news, we recently went to the zoo and had a nice time. Isaac is a bit animal aficionado, so this was right up his alley. William did not complain.

We headed to Ithaca for Thanksgiving and had a nice time. This shot came from after Aleks got back from a run and was doing pushups. Isaac wanted to join in and insisted on being without his shirt, too.

This week Isaac's animals had a party in the train station. It doesn't get much better than that for a toddler.

We celebrated Aleks' birthday this week. Isaac helped blow out candles and open presents.

Belly Blow

I sort of feel like this does not require commentary.

photo free post

I decided that rather than wait until I actually upload photos to the computer and go through them, I might actually just post something without photos. At the rate I am going, I will never post anything again if I wait for photos.

So here are some goings-on with us these days. Part of the reason we are behind is that William got sick a couple weeks ago and ended up in the ER. Our pediatrician was concerned about his breathing and sent us there to be safe. Aleks had taken him to the doctor while I was at work, so needless to say, I was a bit distracted after I got the call from Aleks that we might be heading to the ER with William, which we ended up doing. Thankfully he was doing ok and they sent us home with a nebulizer that night. He was still smiling and giggling through all the wheezing and coughing. He is a really, really happy kid.

Isaac is saying lots of funny things. Yesterday he woke up from his nap and I when I went upstairs, I found him wandering around with a bucket with some toys in it saying "Christmas" over and over again. Today he told me that he wants to go to Christmas so he can get Diesel, and Mavis and some other toys.

He tells us he does not want his "janamas" on at night.

This morning Aleks was not the favored parent. When Isaac came in to our room he told Aleks to go back to sleep because he wanted to play with Mommy. Too bad for Isaac that Mommy had already been up with William for an hour and a half (he decided to get up early) and had just gotten back in to bed. He manged to do just fine playing with Aleks. I think that sometimes he forgets that Aleks is actually a lot more fun than I am.

Now that William is enjoying the world of solid foods, we have been reminding Isaac that he once loved things like squash and sweet potatoes. Recently we offered some squash to Isaac and he told us: "No squash, William east squash. I eat applesauce and yogurt." And he does..."ganilla" yogurt.

I will try to post some photos later. I know that is why the grandparents actually look at this anyway. Who reads books without pictures anyway?

Big Boy

William had his six month check up last week and, as expected, he passed with flying colors. He is huge, and we love it, though I am concerned that Isaac's hand me downs are not going to see us through. He is already wearing pajamas that Isaac wore last winter. Today, he came home from daycare in some of Isaac's spare clothes. I guess that it was not obvious that they are actually for Isaac. Turns out that the pants fit him ok, except for being a bit long.

Here are the stats:

Weight: 21 lbs 4 oz (95th percentile)
Height: (92nd percentile)
Head: ??? Off the charts. Our pediatrician did not have a percentile to give us, she just showed us the nearly vertical line that is the growth curve for his head.

He is really big. Oddly, though, Aleks was even bigger as a baby. That is why I am not worried.

Unlike Isaac his pants actually stay on him-he is very thick around the middle. And this kid is soooo happy. When he was getting his belly checked, he kept laughing really loud because it was tickling. That laughter carried on through getting weighed. It ended abruptly with the shots, but he settled down pretty quick from those-just in time for Isaac to get his flu shot.

When Isaac got his flu shot he was not so amused. He did get a Snoopy bandaid and was showing it off to anyone who would look for the next two days until it fell off. I think that he decided the pain of the shot was worth the bandaid.

William has started solid foods and they are a huge hit. It took Isaac a month to decide that they were worth eating (and that only after we mixed in sweet potatoes). It took William about two bites to decide they were worth eating and then he was grabbing the spoon to put in his mouth and lunging at it. So far rice cereal, peas, carrot, squash and apple sauce have all been big hits. I feel like I could give him about anything and he would gobble it down. So, I plan to give him lots of green veggies. Perhaps he can develop a special love for them at a young age. That would be nice. Hopefully that love will translate over from purees to non-purees. One can hope...

Here is an update on the head reshaping process (please disregard all the clutter-my mom did teach me better). This is the shot of four weeks with the helmet. I think that it is making a difference.