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Why So Serious?

Kid News

So I figured I’d give you all a little break from the ranting and update you on how the kids are doing…

We took Benjamin for an initial visit with a Tyke Talk speech path on Friday. He’s a “late talker” — which apparently isn’t all that uncommon for boys. He has about 30 words right now, and by the time he’s two (just over a month from now) he’s supposed to have 50-100 words, and be able to put two of them together. He hasn’t really hit his vocabulary explosion yet, so they gave us some things to work on with him. Part of his problem, we’re told, is that he’s an independent type (wonder where he gets that from) so rather than asking for what he wants, he’ll try and get it himself.

Fortunately his comprehension is excellent, his problem solving skills are great, and his fine motor skills are above average, so its not likely that he’s developmentally delayed in any way — he just doesn’t see the urgency for talking.

Something else he picked up from his dad (and likely his mom’s side of the family, as well, if his Papa is any indication) is a fascination with how things work. He loves taking things apart, looking at them from all sides, and then trying to put them back together. He also loves anything with wheels… a lot!

He cut a set of 4 or more teeth over the past couple weeks, so he had some high fevers and extra cuddly days, but most of the time he’s a happy kid. He loves his sister, and gives her kisses all the time.

Oh ya, and he got his third hair cut — Nicole did this one, and she did a great job!

Abi is really becoming aware of her world — and aware that its a pretty funny one most of the time. She does her little army crawl all around the house, and moves way faster than you’d think possible for someone her size. She squeals with delight any time there’s any play going on anywhere. If Ben’s laughing, she’s probably laughing along with him.
Something that I didn’t expect, given that she’s a girl, is that she loves horseplay as much as Benjamin did at her age. I always figured having a girl meant you had to be more gentle, but she absolutely loves being thrown in the air or pushed over on the bed and tickled. She doesn’t mind at all if Benjamin steps on her or bumps into her when they’re playing together.

Actually, most of the time, if she’s not hungry, poopy or tired, she’s grinning or laughing — at me, anyway. Nic sees her more, so she might report something different, but pretty much any time I walk into the room she grins at me.

She’s started eating more solid food now — although she doesn’t have any teeth. She likes bread a lot. She eats little pieces of banana, and pretty much any cereal. She has a voracious appetitie — especially at dinner time! We’ve had to start giving her 2 courses of her 5-course meal around 4:30, just to keep her from getting panicky by the time we sit down for dinner.
In between bites of food, she likes to lay her head on her shoulder. It doesn’t look comfortable to me at all, but I guess she thinks the world looks funnier from that angle.

Both kids are sleeping pretty well, now that they’ve adjusted to that stupid Daylight Savings Time switch (which makes no sense to me at all, and if I’m ever President of the world, I’m going to get rid of it) and comfortable in their routines. They detach without problems when we drop them off in nursery — especially if their little babysitter is in there. So, in general, we haven’t really got any major concerns for either of them. They’re growing like weeds, and a joy to have around… most of the time.

I figure I should also take a moment to record all the new little friends they’re about to have, because it seems to be that season of life for so many people we know:

• Chad and Jen just let us know that there’s going to be a little mochaccino baby arriving in 6 months or so
• Brian and Melissa are due almost the same time with baby #2
• Christy and Brent are due any day now with their second
• Jeff and Kathy are having their first, just as he wraps up the long haul through Dental school, in the next week or so
• Chad and Nicole are having their second dual-citizen baby who we hope to meet before they return to Asia
• Pete and Faith are home from Africa having their #3 in December
• Randy and Amber, who got hitched this summer, are having their #2
• Jason and Brooke (who are currently blogless) are gonna pop out a little brother or sister for Benjamin’s girlfriend Alivia in about 7 months

We’re excited for all of them — but especially the first time parents, who can’t possibly imagine how much their lives are about to change! (For the better, don’t worry!)

Kid Vids

Away for a wedding this weekend, so here are some videos to watch…

It may be an odd-looking shuffle, but you’d be surprised at how fast she can get around!

Abi would very much like Ben to give her his bottle. Ben would very much like Abi to give him all her toys — he outgrew the “Ocean Wonders Playset (from Hell)” months ago, but now that its hers, he wants it back!

A Perfect Day

Its not reasonable to expect warm summer weather in the middle of October, but it sure is wonderful when you get it. This weekend we hosted our first family get together — Nicole’s immediately family, plus Nanny all hiked up, with turkey and other delicious food for Thanksgiving. Benjamin could not have been more excited.

We worked fairly hard leading up to their arrival, so Monday we decided to just relax. The kids let us sleep in almost until 8:00, and we decided to take them apple picking. This is what Benjamin thinks of apple picking:

But, we beat the crowd there, got a couple bags of apples, and a yummy jug of apple cider. The orchard was about 25 minutes from our house, and the road trip took us through some beautiful countryside and along a river lined with brilliant trees. We rolled the windows down, and breathed in the warm fall air.

When we got home, we decided we weren’t ready to be in-doors yet, so we packed a picnic lunch and strolled to a little park, where we ate left-over turkey sandwhiches and sipped hot apple cider from a thermos. When he’d finished most of his sandwhich, we left Benjamin down to run around and play.

Then we tried to take a few pictures. This is what Abigail thinks of taking a few pictures:

I’m teasing them both. They had their fits, as babies often do, but mostly they were great all day, and there are some good pictures in the side bar. The kids seemed to love the family time, and both napped fairly hard in the afternoon. While they did, Nic played some Viva Pinata, and I messed around with car stereos — with about 80% success.

In the evening we BBQed and ate dinner out on the deck while the sun set behind us. We sipped a glass of wine (spoils from the Thanksgiving dinner) while the kids worked happily on their desert. When they went to bed, almost without complaint, we sat ’round a poorly built fire that smoked more than it burned (it was the paper, I tell ya, it was damp) watched a little TV, then went to bed ourselves, smelling of outdoors, and apples and camp fire…

It felt good to be free.

Hey! Look over here!

Gotta lighten the mood around here, so everyone look at these pictures and say “aww, how cute” and hope that whoever ends up in charge down there, these kids inherit more than just our mess…

Abi frequently rides around in the laundry hamper.

Hanging out with Daisy is a little more rare. Usually the cat takes off before her tail gets pulled — Benjamin has taught her well.

She just started doing this, and its wonderful. There was no transition period, one day she just decided she was ready for the bottle — and she prefers to hold it herself… which looks incredibly cute, because her hands aren’t very coordinated yet.

Ben likes to be in the pictures too. This is his big boy bottle — don’t tell him, but its actually a sippy cup (the nipple swaps off)

Baby Update!

Abi started crawling yesterday! We have some video, but I haven’t had time to import it and get it online. She looks a bit like Benjamin, when he first started crawling — although her approach is definitely discernably different than the frog hop. She puts her face down, lifts up her butt, and then slides forward — sort of like a caterpillar — while Benjamin started up, and fell forward.

Her locomotion arrives about half a month later than Ben’s did, but its not really her fault. The laminate flooring in the living room, where she spends the majority of her tummy time, is far too slippery to be able to start crawling on, so this weekend we went out and spent $80 on an area rug. Its not a terribly attractive one — that would have cost a lot more — but it does the job, and it helped immediately. Within 4 days with the new-found traction she’d started getting around a little bit on her own.

Benjamin’s also growing up. He maybe doesn’t have quite as many words as we’d like, but he’s learning. Here’s a sampling of his vocabulary:

• Dowwwwn (accompanied by a little finger pointed towards the ground) is usually used when he’s finished his meal and wants to get down to play. It’s also usually used first when he’s ready to get into his chair to eat, until we correct him.
• Bupp! means up, and its what he says when we’ve told him that he can’t get “down” into his booster seat, he has to get “up” into it.
• OOOOTAY! roughly translates to OK, but is usually used for declaring success. Yesterday, at lunch, he lined up his hot dog slices, standing on end, across his plate. When he was done, he proudly announced “OOOOTAY!!” and then giggled at his own brilliance.
• MMHMM is an affirmative, which he uses when he wants to give himself permission to do something he’s not allowed to do. This is helpful to us, because when we hear him repeating “MMHMM, MMHMM” we know he’s probably going after the scissors, or trying to take Abi’s pacifier away.
• Baff is obviously bath, which is still accompanied by the sign language.
• Shoes and Wwwalk usually go hand-in-hand, since he knows you can’t have one without the other, and are pronounced perfectly — aside from the extra care in forming the W.
• Bobble is bottle. He started with “baba,” but we were determined he could do better. Bobble seemed a fair comprimise, since its not really baby talk.
• SAT? is what’s that? and gets used liberally, along with Uh-oh!, pretty much any time he’s bored, curious, or has found something unexpected.

Aside from these, and a few others, if he’s in the right mood, he’ll try to copy single, simple words you use in front of him. He usually does the best on his first attempt, but gets worse as he over-analyzes it. He can identify most parts of your face now, and if you ask him to find a “nose” he’ll have to visit every single person in the room and touch their nose.

He counts along with us, up to five, although he never gets it right all the way through, it usually sounds something like “WAAAAN, FREEeee, FREEEEE!, Ffooor, BYE!!”

He gives kisses on demand — especially to Abi, who he loves to kiss and hug. I figure he should also learn a more manly greeting, so we’re working on “gimme five!” He waves good-bye any time we leave the house.

I lament a little about all the changes in our life lately, and how those things have robbed Abi of some of the early life experiences Benjamin had. She seems to be a little more introverted than he is, and although I’m an introvert and proud of it, I wonder how much the extra social exposure Benjamin had in his first 8-10 months of life shaped his personality (not to mention his love of music) and if Abi could have had more of those experiences, if life hadn’t worked out the way it did. We try not to treat her any differently than we did Benjamin, or coddle her any more just because she’s a girl, but the reality is that our lives are very different than they were when Ben arrived, and she’s probably a lot more sheltered.

Still, they’re both healthy and happy, giggle at least as frequently as they wail, and are more-or-less on-course developmentally, so I guess we’re doing alright over-all. Now that we have health insurance, they’re both back to the doctor’s this week for some check-ups and shots. Ben’s getting his ear tubes checked out this afternoon, and we’re all getting over a bit of a cold, but life carries on. We’ll get some pictures/video up soon!

Haircut @Home

The boy needed a haircut. We’d wake him up from his naps, and even with the air conditioning on, his hair would be matted to his head with sweat.

But his last haircut (which was also his first) cost over $10. That’s a lot of money for a baby’s head — especially when he pretty much needs his hair cut every month.

So we figured it was time for a crash course in hair dressing.

The boy was pretty patient with us, and the only person who got cut by the scissors was me.

The results? Not bad for our first try. A little uneven in the back, but he’s not complaining about it…

A hurriedly prepared post with some low frame-rate videos in it…

I got home to Canada this weekend, for all of about 36 hours. Got to see my kids, spend some time with my wife, and change a few diapers. While I was there, Benjamin got his first hair cut. He was a very good boy through the whole thing, and of course, he looks adorable now — and frighteningly grown-up. There’s plenty of pictures in Flickr, but here’s a couple low-quality videos of the event too…

At Nic’s parent’s place Ben has a toy tractor that he loves to ride around on. Here’s a quick clip of his new favourite mode of transportation. (Note the Canadian spelling. We’ll be going back to the Queen’s English here on jonandnic.com now that we’re moving back!)

And for our final video of the day, here’s a real treat. One of the best things about having multiple babies is the way they set each other off. If you think one crying baby is hard to handle, you’ll love it when the other baby joins in. This clip is from one of our road trips home — they were sleeping peacefully until we were almost there, then this happened…

In other news, Ben has a new trick — he says words!! His favourite word is “HI!” which he says excitedly when you get him up in the morning. He also says “juice” but just the word by itself isn’t interesting enough for him, so he likes to work up to it: “JU-JU-JU-JOOOOOSH!!!”
He also huffs when he’s ticked off at you. A trick he learned from his babysitter… who huffs when she’s ticked off at you :-p

The family is doing great, Abi’s almost sleeping through the night, and my mom’s here in NY to help me pack. Two weeks left before we’re all home together in Canada. I can’t wait!

Baby Sign (in which our kids show off their funny faces)

The other day, Benjamin toddled into the living room, tugged on mommy’s pants and demanded a bath. Not only was it the right time of night (we usually give him his bath just before bed) but it was the right night — bath night is every other, and he knows it.

No, he can’t talk yet, but Benjamin knows a little bit of another way of communicating: sign language.

We’d always wanted to sign with our kids, even though neither of us know any ASL at all, but when Ben got his string of ear infections, leading to the surgery, we figured we’d better work on it in earnest, in case his ear problems delayed his language acquisition. The results are adorable.

For a long time he’s known the sign for cookie. He gets one after his afternoon nap, so he wakes up signing it. But the comprehension wasn’t really there — he’d sign cookie for anything he wanted in his mouth. To be fair, there are 3 signs we’ve tried to teach him around the topic of eating: food, more and cookie so that must be confusing — and its obvious which would become his favorite.

The sign for more comes out every once in awhile, and its pretty cute when it does. The sign for bath, though, suggests a new level of comprehension. Its not a word we use that frequently, and its difficult one to do — you make a scrubbing motion near your chest with both hands in fists. Ben doesn’t quite get it right, and the first time he did it, just after Nicole went for her shower and he tried to follow her in, I wasn’t sure what he was doing. He looks more like a monkey: he flicks his fingers near his armpits. Close enough, right?

He’s also mastered the sign for, and use of, all done, and when he’s finished with his bottle or his food — or just finished with us — he signs all done to let us know.

Yup, our monster is a little genius. We’re kinda glad he hasn’t learned to talk yet… this way he can’t talk back! The other day, Nic left him playing in the living room alone for a few minutes. When she came back, she found him in Abi’s swing. Never mind that the swing is a foot and a half off the ground, Ben worked out a way to get there…

Abi is learning some tricks too. Her trick this morning, at the 4:30am feeding, was to poop explosively out her diaper and onto her pajamas (and Nicole’s!) This obviously led to a late-night changing and cleaning, which led to some crying, which led to Benjamin waking up and screaming, which meant both parents were needed…

I got Benjamin duty, due to my lack of boobs and need to work in the morning. Fortunately, he went back down pretty quick and I was able to get another hour of sleep. Nicole wasn’t so lucky, so I took both babies this morning so Nic could catch a half-hour (try making yourself a coffee, feeding a one-year-old and getting ready for work, all while holding a 2-week-old — without making any noise!)

Oh ya, between the babies and the boxes piling up, things are fun at our place these days…

A Job Well Done

So I’m making myself a pot of coffee this morning, and as I pull out the coffee filters, Benjamin runs over with his arm out, demanding one — one of whatever it is I’m having. So I take a paper filter for myself and hand him one to play with.

At first he’s not sure what to do with it. He carefully turns it around in his hands, inspecting all sides of it. Then he notices the tupperware cabinet beside him is open. His face lights up as the coffee filter becomes a piece of tupperware, and he carefully stacks it on top of the other plastic containers, and closes the door.

Suddenly, though, in mid close, it occurs to him that maybe it wasn’t tupperware after all. He flings the door back open, grabs the filter, and proceeds to scrub the floor with it. He does this for a minute or two, humming to himself as he cleans…

But then he has another idea! Perhaps it isn’t a scrub brush, either. Maybe its a cloth for wiping his face after he eats. So he picks it up and dabs his face with it, then reaches up to me to clean my face off too. Then he tosses the filter aside and waddles away…

Then jerks to a stop, turns around and runs back to it with a new idea! Perhaps its a wet wipe! So he picks it up and tries to reach around with his arm and wipe his bum with it!

Finally, having exhausted his known list of applications for similar looking devices, he drops it on the floor and walks away. A job well done.