Riding a bike

Poe got her new tricycle for her 2nd birthday, but the weather hasn't always been great so she hasn't ridden in much.

Today B broke it out of the garage and, for the very first time, Penelope was able to pedal on her own.

Enjoy!



Link to video here

Nice to meet you!

Pen's new trick is to ask to shake your hand. She then says "Nice to meet you!" Then she has you shake Woody's hand.

Over. And over. And over again.

It is HILARIOUS.

Tomorrow we take family pics. I'm not sure when I'll have finished products to share. We will get a CD of pictures so I'll be able to post quite a few on the blog.

Also? Molar #2 is peeking through. So we're up to 10 teeth. Neither molar is completely out, that will probably take a week or so at least. Possibly longer. Molars are the WORST (IMO) and it sucks that there's so many of them (well, for teething purposes, not for actual eating purposes).

Speaking of eating, we have discovered that Griffin loves bacon. So Penelope and I will be the vegetarians in the family and Bryan and Griffin can go on wild boar hunts or some other such nonsense.

Reading

Lately Penelope has taken to spelling and "reading" nearly everything she can. She spelled out the letters/numbers in Bryan's car's license plate and told me it said "red car".

So I took some video of her and her book today. What this video highlights isn't Penelope's reading skills (since she's not actually reading) but it does demonstrate some rather impressive pre-reading skills. She understands that letters make up words and that words describe pictures. She is also beginning to understand that letters are made up of sounds and you can put them together to make words. She may actually recognize some of the words, but I haven't tried to write them without their picture associations, so I'm not positive. I wouldn't expect for her to be able to recognize many, if any, words by sight at this age. It would be crazy-early.

She needs all of these skills before she starts to really read, and I am very happy and proud that she has them. It doesn't mean she's a genius, but it does mean that she excels in this particular area of development. She'll probably read early and then trip over her own feet the rest of her life (she still runs rather strangely). She can't be good at everything!

Nap Battle

We mostly have a handle on Griffin's sleep at night. It's not great, but it's generally tolerable. Although the past two nights have been awful and I hope they're just teething related because if this is indicative of a new sleep pattern then I need to find him some baby Ambien.

Three days ago he actually slept great. Better than great, it was like magic. He went down at 8:30 and slept until 3:30. That is the longest he has slept in his ENTIRE LIFE. Then he nursed for 10 minutes, fell back asleep, and woke up for the day at 7:30ish. Glorious I tell you, GLORIOUS.

Of course, I had given him some baby Benedryl that night because he had red, puffy, watery, and itchy eyes and his nose was running like a faucet. Dollars to donuts that miraculous sleep stretch was Benedryl induced. And although I loved getting that much sleep, I'm not actually willing to continually dose him with Benedryl to get it... unless of course he has actual symptoms which the allergy meds can alleviate.

But after "the miracle" we've had a night where he woke up for the day at 5:30am and then last night where he woke up at 3:30 and was up for an hour and half before finally falling back asleep. Terrible, awful, no-good, and very bad. I was exhausted. And really flipping annoyed.

So we'll see what tonight brings. We cannot do CIO, for many reasons, the #1 reason being that it will wake up Penelope and I absolutely, positively cannot have two children wide awake at 2am. Cannot.

But this post isn't about night time. It's about naps.

And the fact that G takes one nap a day.

Which only lasts an hour.

Unless, of course, he's nursing.

Those of you who have children of G's age, or remember what the 1 year stage was like, will understand how this is not acceptable. In any way, shape, or form. Babies this age NEED more daytime sleep than that. And mommies of babies this age NEED more downtime than that. I can get the extra downtime if I leave him attached to me, but I can't get anything done that way.

I honestly don't know what to do... I mean, when I have him, we nurse. But when my Dad has him he can't do that and so G only takes an hour nap. He's then super clingy/needy and just plain tired the rest of the day (G, not my Dad... although I'm sure Dad is pretty darn tired as well).

So I'm soliciting suggestions. Again, CIO is not possible. The last thing Dad or I need is two children who won't nap.

And yes, when Griffin is a teenager and refuses to wake up in the mornings or sleeps until noon, I will show him these posts and demand an apology. Or something.

Also? Does someone want our 5 year old dog? She's getting on my very last nerve. She's actually a sweet dog, but she tends to be very loud just when I'm getting Griffin to sleep. Daily. It is SO damn annoying.

He's Shaun the Sheep

Shaun the Sheep is a claymation cartoon that competes with Kipper (another show of British origins) for Penelope's heart. Post-bathtime is cartoon time and she watches anywhere from 30-45 minutes of a show before bed. We used to be an exclusive Kipper household until Kim and Orson introduced us to Shaun. Good thing too, we're (meaning Bryan and I) are rather tired of Kipper and his slipper. Due to the Orson association, Penelope actually calls Shaun the Sheep "the Orson show" and calls Shaun "Orson".

So often she will exclaim "Look mama, Orson is silly!" or "Oh, silly Orson!" or "Orson dancing!"

Busy actually owns some Shaun the Sheep merchandise, so this past weekend when we were over Poe walked around with the smaller stuffed Shaun. She had a death grip on the poor thing and would hug it and call it "Orson".

I think we need to get her one.

Although she has a ridiculous amount of toys. She really doesn't need anymore.

Dear Son,

5:30am is not an acceptable wake-up time unless you're spending the night with Granny & Grandpa. Please make note of this.

Sincerely,
Mommy

More teeth!

So I was right, Griffin is getting molars. One of his top molars is peeking through. So that explains some of the snot of the past few days. The top teeth always seem to bring more mucous than the bottom. Probably something to do with some sort of connection between the nasal cavity and the maxilla (yeah, I looked that up).

So now he has nine teeth even though #9 isn't all the way through.

He is also waving hello and goodbye and trying to repeat words. My parents swear he said "flower" the other day.

He's also getting closer to walking but isn't quite there yet. Maybe by his birthday, maybe not. I know he'll be very happy when he's mobile, right now I bring his push-walker almost everywhere so he can explore.

Poe-potamous has been... defiant lately. That has not been enjoyable. About half the time she's her normal self and the other half she's "no, no, NO!" No fun.

So we've done our fair share of time outs and they work for awhile, but it's not like this can be "fixed" - it's a phase. It will just take a lot of consistency in discipline.

I actually had a long post planned, but I cannot remember it. You would think that after finishing my Masters I would get my brain back, but no. In fact, this weekend I took the kids to their friend Busy's 2nd birthday party a day before the actual party. I was soooo embarrassed. Luckily Holly & Ryan are lovely and let us stay and play for awhile. Penelope was happy to get to play with Busy two days in a row, so it worked out. But I still can't believe I mixed it up, usually I'm great with days.

Mommy brain I guess. Or post-Masters fog. Or I'm just getting too close to 30.