Zonked

Sometimes Henry will still take a nap, but he has to be really tired and I have to time it just right with a cup of milk and a video in our bed.  The other day the stars aligned and he conked out so deeply, we had to wake him when it was time to head out to a party.  All you have to do is whisper "party," though, and he's up and at 'em.  That kid is so social; he loves parties of all sorts.  

New Henryisms: "What light does that switch cooperate?"  "Did you get Mama's opinion on that, Daddy?"  "Whoever wants to play 'Giant,' raise your hand!" 

When asked whether he wanted to go over to Gran's, he asked, "Are Eric and Rebekah and Gus there?"  I reminded him that they went back to Texas.  "Again?!  Why do they keep going there?" 

Good times

Here's the best we could do with a three-kid photo shoot!  Pretty hilarious.  I do see a bit of family resemblance here, and I don't mean everyone's contrarianism.  

We had a great time being together, and can't wait for the next visit!  

Memorial Day Weekend

I know the kids are cute, but look at my nice flowers blooming in the background!

Sandbox

We're having a lot of fun being together and watching the kids get to know one another.  This was a nice moment of sandbox play tonight after dinner at our house.  Gus wowed us with the best party trick ever: he can raise one eyebrow, just like his dad!  So hilarious.  Henry adores Eric and Rebekah and is so happy they are here.  They are so good at playing games with, teasing, and amusing him, and he loves it.  

In love with Gus

The Texas Rausers are here!  And it is wonderful to see them.  Gus is so beautiful with his olive skin, sunshine tan, Rebekah-brown eyes, and gorgeous white-blond hair.  He's a smiling, laughing sweetheart, too.  When I buckled him and Agatha into the double stroller on our walk yesterday, I realized that they do look alike-- although it might just be their similar hairstyles.  

Here are some pictures from yesterday, playing ball, and with Gus puckering up for a kiss.  

Mom is feeling much, much better today, and is planning to go grocery shopping and grill tonight.  

Sweet Girl

This is how Agatha looks teething and with a bad cold-- still pretty happy and smiley!  

Declare Peace

These pictures are from last Friday, when Henry chose his excellent outfit, including accessories (the sun visor he made last summer, and the butterfly he had made the previous day in school).  We were looking at slugs on the rain-dampened porch while waiting for the neighbor boys to come out for the ride to school.

Unfortunately, that was the last day that he was our sweet, inquisitive boy.  Overnight he was replaced by a pod-person Henry-replica who spits, throws tantrums, and basically defies all rules of civil behavior.  Saturday evening I realized I was yelling and threatening and getting pulled into a bad spiral, so Sunday I went back to the time-out, which we hadn't had to use in a long time.  I can't even count how many I gave on Sunday, but I know there were three time-outs before breakfast this morning!  

It's all very baffling and exhausting.  What the heck?  He went to a birthday party on Sunday afternoon, and I thought he would be glad to tear around and play with his friends, after being so difficult all morning.  But no, what did he do?  He clung to my legs and sat on my lap for over an hour.  Very unlike him.  

Tonight I talked with him at bedtime, after all was calm and he was settled in for the night (I will not recount the various frustrations of getting him to that point!).  I pointed out that we had had a rough couple of days, and he agreed.  I asked him why, and he didn't know.  I suggested that we try to have a good day tomorrow, with no time-outs, with good behavior and pleasantness and listening to mom and dad.  "Let's have a good day tomorrow, okay?"  And he answered: "We declare peace!"

 

First tooth!

Agatha started cutting her first tooth on Friday, the 15th of May.  Unfortunately, she also has a bad cold so she's pretty miserable today.  Poor little thing!  She still sleeps well but is understandably somewhat cranky when awake.  

Happy Birthday, Gran

We had a nice party for Mom on her big birthday this past Tuesday.  Lots of neighbors and friends came and it was so lovely.  Agatha's present to Gran was that she learned to wave on her birthday, and did it only for Gran.  Henry's present to Gran was his cold, which Gran came down with later that night, after her guests left.  

Working on mobility

Agatha is showing an interest in crawling.  She now leans forward from a seated position and flops onto all fours.  She then tries to push up on her hands and knees.  She gets annoyed and frustrated until she sees me looking at her and then, flirt that she is, breaks into a huge smile.

Here Agatha is trying to pull up on her toy basket.  It's a little hard to see in this picture, but she's just on tip-toes.  

South America

Henry made this map in school this week.  He is so proud of it!  (It is large, about two feet tall.)  His teacher laminated it for him because it was such good work.  

Happy Mother's Day

Bad Mommy

In honor of Mother's Day, I feel the urge to buck the trend of the day and confess something I've done that's bad, bad, bad-- at least by the supermommy standards of my friends and relations.  Are you ready?  Agatha has recently eaten-- and enjoyed!-- both Chef Boyardee ravioli AND cheese curls (maybe they should be written "cheez curls"?).  

With Henry, it was all organic brown rice and so on for at least two years, but once it was clear he was such a good and generally healthy eater, I started to get more lax.  Also, he really didn't like much junk food, so I didn't have to be very vigilant.  He didn't have much of a sweet tooth, and never even tasted ice cream, by his own choice, until two months ago.  He didn't like the processed "kid food" that sometimes appeared at friends' houses, like Kraft macaroni and cheese or chicken fingers.  But there were some things he really liked, such as hot dogs.  Pasta with tomato sauce, especially with meat, is one of his favorite meals, so in a hurry on a day we were getting him a babysitter I got him some canned ravioli, and he loved it.  It's become our go-to babysitter-night food-- a special treat and easy, all in one.  A couple of weeks ago when we were in the throes of our super-busy season (and Mom was in Seattle!), I was feeding Henry ravioli before the babysitter arrived and Agatha was squealing for her dinner as well.  Why not?, I thought.  When we were in England when Henry was 10 months old, we got the best baby food there that actually smelled like something you wanted to eat-- chicken curry and lasagna and stuff like that in a jar.  How was this so different?  The tomato sauce is sweet and not too acidic, the noodles are mushy-- it's basically baby food as it is!  I handed her a ravioli and she loved it.  She could feed it to herself, and it tasted good.  What's not to like?  (Well, I know, many things... that's the "bad mommy" part.)

The next day Michael was looking for something to feed her, and I confessed my Chef Boyardee experiment.  He was a little dubious, but willing to let her have some.  "How small should I cut up the pieces?" he asked me.  Ummmm....   

Sentence Enhancers

Henry woke up cool and cheerful this morning, so his mystery fever seems to be behind him, thank goodness.  

One funny thing Henry's been doing lately is polishing his idiomatic expressions.  Michael refers to it as his "sentence enhancers," after an episode of SpongeBob where the characters use bad words.  We were driving by some large natural gas storage tanks a couple of weeks ago and Henry said, "What is THAT the heck?"  He also calls Michael and me "guys," as in, "Okay, night-night guys!" or, as he said tonight at dinner, "Nice manners, guys!"  (This was not said sarcastically; he was actually praising our manners.)  

Crazy goofball

Ignore my annoying voice here-- just focus on the cute and goofy baby!

Feverish

Henry was sick today with a fever that first struck about 1 am, seemed to moderate in the morning and then came back intensely around noon.  I called his doctor but since there seemed to be no other symptoms, we were told to watch, wait, and give Tylenol and lots of fluids.  This afternoon he perked up enough to do some gardening with me and walk over to Gran's to check out the construction, but he was asleep by 5:15, and woke around 6 with the fever present again.  I'm hopeful that he'll sleep it off tonight and feel better tomorrow.

Despite Henry's sickness and Michael being at work all day with a variety of obligations, it was a great day.  Agatha was in fine fettle, grinning and making crazy noises and devouring her food.  She is now trying to wave when she gives the touchdown salute-- yesterday for the first time I noticed her trying to flap the fingers of her left hand.  So sweet.  

I'm really enjoying being a mom of two lately.  It's probably due in equal parts to me getting lots of sleep, the children being at fun ages, and not having too much work right now.  I'm just loving doing projects with Henry, walking him home from school, playing with Agatha, and managing their bedtimes and naptimes and meals.  I have to say, the early months were tough, but this is really fun.  I'm so fortunate to be able to spend so much time with them.  

This picture, by the way, is from a couple of days ago.  Agatha loves to stand, although she's still pretty unsteady.  She looks like she could take off running in this picture, but she's still far from it!  Working on it, though.  

Target and Tofu

Today was a good example of the simple pleasures of having Mom in Lancaster: Henry was off school and Michael was working, so Mom, the children and I went out to Target together, to the fabric store to buy material for her shower curtain, and then to Thai food for lunch.  I can't say it was the most relaxing lunch ever, but it was sweet to be dining out all together.  Henry ordered vegetables with tofu and then the waitress came back to say they didn't have any tofu today.  "But I want tofu!" he wailed.  "Can we please go to another store than has tofu?"  He was consoled by eating all of his and Mom's dumplings.  He had a busy day, spending lots of time at Gran's watching the construction next door, and then working with me washing the front porch, restacking the firewood on the back porch (he is excellent at these things), and mowing the lawn.  He is very competitive (where DOES he get it?), and lately everything is a contest, from eating oatmeal the fastest to lifting more logs at one time ("am I stronger than you, Mama, or are you stronger than me?").  Agatha continues to smile winningly at all strangers and to give them her "touchdown" salute. 

Squealing with delight

A dear friend gave us a huge bag of hand-me-down books, and in sorting through them I was about to pass along one with a mechanical song-playing feature that I found annoying.  But I accidentally pushed the button and Aggie lit up and squealed with delight as the little tune played.  By the way, Henry also loves it!  We've played all the tunes and sung the little verses a hundred times in the last two days.  

Cool shoes

It was a rainy Friday afternoon and at 2 pm I had two awake kids and the hours stretching ahead of me, so I took them to the mall.  Henry had been pestering me for sunglasses, so I thought we could get him some.  Turns out he had no real interest in sunglasses, though.  He DID get interested in shoes, and because he needed those too, we went looking for them.  He immediately spotted some lace-up shoes with lights and the "Iron Man" character on them, and desperately wanted them. "Mom, it's Iron Man!"  I tried to interest him in Converse low-tops, or sandals, but nothing compared.  "No, Mom, I want some COOL shoes!"  Finally I gave in and let him try them on.  He had to admit they were too narrow for his feet, but was heartbroken.  I then showed him some sandals with lights and "Transformers" on them.  They fit fine and he was thrilled.  

How on earth does he even know about these characters?  We don't even have a TV!  But besides that, the concept of COOL... I mean, he's three!