Aquarium!

Today Judit and I took the kids to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We haven't been in awhile and Judit had never been, so everyone was pretty excited. I brought the fancy-camera in the hopes that I could get some cool shots of the various sea creature and/or the kids.

Because you're not supposed to use flash (so as not to disturb the creature and because the light bounces off the glass) most of my pictures are pretty blurry. I'm still not very good with the manual focus and the auto focus has a hard time in low light.

So I didn't get a lot of pictures that I love. Below are some that are just ok.

Penguins!

Jellies!

More jellies!

Baby turtle!

Judit & kids, having fun at the jellies exhibit

More jellies...

Dragon-thingie (can't remember its name)

Octopus Garden

Looking through the scope... at the sky

Judit and the kids

Sometimes they're sweet to each other

After the Aquarium, Bubby slept and I did a photo shoot with Sissy so I could play with the settings. Here are my favorites.

A girl and her dog

Chalk

Love this girl

I have a ton of witty things to blog about

But considering my short term memory has gone to hell since school started back up, you won't get to hear any of them.

Most of them had to do with the kids, something funny about parenting, or just me being my normally hilarious self. So just pretend I amused you and then read this.

Griffin has recently entered the "F-You Mother" stage of being 2. It's like the teenage "F-You World" stage, only 80% of the time it's directed at me, and he's still cute so it's mostly amusing. Also, it's only a part-time stage (unlike the teenage stage) and so he's still willing to give me hugs & kisses, and still demands to be held on occasion. These are the reasons why he's still living with us and hasn't been shipped off to toddler boarding school or sold to gypsies (excuse me, Romas).

This stage has three important steps that define it:
1. Refusal to do any simple task which he would have gladly performed last week
2. Crossed arms when mommy counts to three and a look that is intended to kill, but only makes me laugh
3. A loud and indignant "I will!" just as I reach the number 2, barely preventing him from sitting in a time out

There are secondary characteristics, but they're too numerous to mention. Although he did attempt to distract me from his inappropriate behavior in the car the other day. As we were driving and he was spitting on himself (yes, you read that correctly) he loudly proclaimed "look mama, a bus!" and pointed out the window just as I had finished scolding him about spitting but before I could start counting.

Granted, he did voluntarily relinquish his sippy when I asked him "do I need to take your sippy away so you stop spitting?" And that shows a considerable amount of self-awareness for a 2 year old and actually made me quite proud of him.

He's also started to get rather possessive of things - namely his sister. "Dat's MY Delpi!" (read: That's my Penelope) or "No, my dit-dee" (read: No, my sissy).

While he can also be possessive of Bryan and I, odds are he's more concerned that people understand the Pen is his, so keep that in mind you dirty sister stealer.

Perhaps I am exaggerating. But I rarely do that.

The kids are still amazingly fond of each other, and I am amazed at how well they get along. Granted, they will still fight, but they stick up for one another, generally play well together, and are quite affectionate. I wish I wasn't too lazy to upload one of their latest hugging pictures... but I AM too lazy. Perhaps later. Once school is over.

Speaking of school, I must say that I love my job. LOVE. But this year is already exhausting. At the beginning of the school year I told myself that next year, after BTSA is over and I've cleared my credential - and after evaluations are over and I've gotten tenure - that next year would not be so completely and utterly draining. I was lying to myself. Next year, and every year that I work in education - will be exhausting. I'll rest when I'm dead, n'est-ce pas?

Be Vewy Vewy Quiet

The last few days have been crazy, but tonight the house is eerily silent. I can't decide if I like crazy or quiet better. I think maybe crazy.

Early EARLY Thursday Bryan left for Oklahoma. His best friend's wife passed away and he went out to be with his friend for a few days. He comes home late Sunday and we all cannot wait until he gets back. I'm really glad we could make it work so B could go out there - I wish we all could have gone - but we miss him. I miss him. A lot.

And not just because the kids are super-clingy suddenly (although that certainly factors in). I miss him because, believe it or not, I really love that man. Good thing I guess :)

But until then I'm (mostly) doing ok. Tonight my parents have the kids for their regular Friday night date (it's move night, they're watching Aristocats) and so I am all by my lonesome for an entire night. That hasn't happened in over 4 years! I don't know what to do with myself... laundry is started, the living room is clean, the floors have been swept and mopped... I should probably get around to cleaning the bathrooms (ick). Maybe after blogging :)

I have a TON to talk about and I hope I remember it all. Every day something new happens with one or both of the kids and I feel like if I don't write it down I won't remember it. And I want to remember. I love these stages.

Penelope is a chatter box. She narrates everything! "Mama, see trees? Pah-pooh-pea see trees! I count them, 1, 2, 3, 4..." She can count up to 30 (which she calls twenty-ten), and is so very sweet. He big "bad" thing is hitting - she gets frustrated and hits, which we're working on. But afterward she'll come up and apologize and give you a hug. Griffin is usually on the receiving end of her swats and he tolerates them pretty well. He cry and bit and then grin at her when she gives him a hug.

G is getting very brave - he's ready to walk (mentally) even though he's not quite there physically. And we've decided that "mama" is indeed his first word. He now uses it only when he's talking about me, which is often. That child is one big mama's boy.

They're both big (in 4T & 18-24 months) and pretty much the most adorable children ever conceived. But I'm not biased or anything.

Penny sleeps with the following items: Her Jessie doll, a Buzz Lightyear toy, the Woody cake-topper, Kiki (he stuffed cat from Build-A-Bear), Cookie Monster, and her pillow pet.

When she's tired, she whispers EVERYTHING. When she knows Griffin is asleep she'll also whisper. Sometimes she talks in a high pitched voice when she's trying to mimic my "sing-song" voice or when she's calling for Griffin.

One of their favorite games is to chase each other up and down the hall. She'll say "this way Bubba! This way" and he'll crawl after her, she'll screech and he'll laugh.

His sleep is improving. He's only up 2-3 times at night and a few nights he doesn't need an extra bottle. WIC is setting me up with an LC next week to see what she thinks about my milk supply. We'll see. I don't have my hopes up that anything short of more domperidone will increase my supply enough to drop the 1-2 bottles of formula he gets a day.

I've been looking for a job since January and so far it's gone about as well as a hunt for the end of the rainbow. A lot of districts aren't even hiring subs. But I'll continue the search. Something has to turn up. Bryan and I are discussing out of state options, so we'll see where that leads.

Ok, that's all I can think of for now (kid related at least). I do have some Soab-box-y stuff I want to talk about, but that can wait. I'll end with some pictures (which are also on Facebook).


With the kids at the zoo today


Little man and I


I love the expression on G's face in this one.


The kids with my brother, Uncle "O-Nic"

Circles

I wonder when I can sign P up for ballet lessons.

She's taken to twirling and dancing in circles - she does this with her Jessie doll saying "wheeee!" the entire time. Griffin thinks it's hilarious (it is) and so she'll do it now just to make him laugh. Of course, then she gets really dizzy and bumps into walls; this causes her to dissolve into a fit of giggles herself.

She also likes to run in circles. Specifically she like to run circles around her brother.

Exhibit A: (if you're reading this on Facebook you have to actually come to the blog site to see the video)

Lets see how much I can get down before one of the kids needs me for something

That title was excessively long.

Anyway, I've been meaning to sit and write down all of the cute/funny/sweet/exciting things the kids have been up to lately. I figured that being on break from school would naturally give me more free time. Ha. Hahahahaha. Haha.

So I'll try and remember what I can and see if I can squeeze some pictures in at the end.

1. Penelope and Griffin have become almost inseparable. When she wakes up from her nap she wants to "see Bubba" and if he's nowhere to be found (i.e. in the livingroom or with Bryan in the office) she starts to cry "Mama, see Bubba! Bubba are you??" (which is how she says 'where are you') until Bubba is produced. She will also whisper when he's sleeping so as not to wake him.

He returns the affection. He laughs at almost everything she does and wants to do whatever it is she is doing. He loves to give her kisses (which are wide, open mouth ones that look like he's trying to eat her face) and he also loves to pull her hair.

They do really well sharing with each other. Poe will often want what he's playing with, but she's good about giving him a new toy - so they'll switch toys and that way no one cries.

Of course, they don't always get along, but they honestly get along 95% of the time. I'm a little amazed at how well they interact since all you hear when you're pregnant with #2 is the horrors of sibling rivalry. I'm sure they'll fight and yell at each other at some point, but I do think that they'll continue to get along rather well. Only time will tell.

It has made me think a lot about my relationship with my brother growing up. Of course, he and I have completely different personalities than Poe and Griffin - plus we were 5 years apart. We get along rather well now and I think we generally got along as kids, but we had some epic arguments. I moved out his freshman year in high school so we didn't really see each other a lot when he was in his obnoxious teen years (not that he's no longer obnoxious - he is).

2. Penelope has finally started referring to herself as "I". No more third person.

3. Griffin still isn't crawling. Maybe by New Years. I hope by then!

4. The other day Penelope had some friends over for t-shirt painting. She made a shirt for herself, one for Griffin, and one for each of my parents. Here's some pictures of her making the shirts and then a group shot of everyone in their shirts:





5. Christmas! The kids made out like bandits this year, our house is not big enough for all of their stuff. This has given me an excuse to go through toys and donate gently used items - I was planning on doing it anyway, but finding a place for new toys has made donation a necessity. We're very lucky to have so many generous people in our lives, but I have to admit the sheer volume was very overwhelming! Two kids can't possibly need all these toys, but we're still very thankful for all we received. Our kids are certainly loved by both sides of the family!

Here's some Christmas photos - I didn't get a chance to take any while we were in Reno :( and I should probably devote a whole post to our Reno trip, but I don't think I'll get to it. It was a great trip with the exception of one night in the hotel when Penelope was awake from 1:30-5am.


Griffin in his 2nd favorite position


My cousin Macy and I


Riley and Penelope during present opening


A sleeping Grandpa Larry


Cousin Jodee (8 weeks pregnant with her first!) and G-man

And I shall leave you with more upsidedown baby

This is what happens when she dresses herself

It's been a busy break so far. We're only on Tuesday and we've already had three play groups, a dozen art projects, and almost no TV (yea!).

I missed the stay-at-home-mom thing. But I know when week 2 rolls around I'll miss teaching. I'm really looking forward to having my credential, for a lot of reasons, one major reason is that hopefully I'll find a job where I'll have my own classroom. This traveling from class to class makes things a little more difficult than I anticipated - keeping track of student work, grading, communicating with students and parents... all much more difficult when you work out of a rolling bin.

Anyway. The kids.

Here are some pictures... hopefully tomorrow they'll nap as wonderfully as today and I'll get a chance to write a longer blog post.

So here's some of Penny's handpicked outfits:


(I think this one looks like Cindy-Lou Who on after a Caribbean vacation)

The other day Poe climbed into G's jumper. I have no idea how she did this.


Poe playing the drums, her Uncle Nic would be so proud


She would actually bow to the audience after each song. Freaking hilarious.

"Helping" me feed Griffin - she actually wasn't half bad :)




That's what I have for now :) If I don't post until after x-mas then I hope everyone has a very happy holiday!

My children are weird

Occasionally Penelope and Griffin will sit next to each other and just laugh. Penny will do something and G will laugh, then P will laugh that G is laughing, and the cycle will repeat. It's nice having kids that are so easily amused.

In just a few weeks Penelope will turn 2. TWO. Two YEARS. TWO YEARS OLD!

Holy monkeys in a jar, where did the time go????

We're still working on a location for her birthday party. At this age the party is still more for us than her (and if we're being completely honest it's mostly for me, I think Bryan would be just fine with a low-key family thing, but I *need* a party. Don't ask me why, I just do ok?).

It's been so crazy here that party planning has fallen by the wayside. But my last seminar class is Monday and then all I have are TPA 3 & 4 (TPA 3 is practically finished), a few silly hoops to jump through for the CCTC (CA Commission on Teacher Credentialing), finishing out the semester of student teaching, and writing a thesis. Haha, "only".

So I won't be sane until at least February. If then. Hold your sarcastic comments please.

Other things:
*Penelope is perhaps the sweetest, most loving, and wonderful two year old in the history of toddlers. She is constantly giving hugs and kisses, loves her brother, the dog, her dolls, and everything ever. She tells me I look "bootaful" when I wear hats (which I will now wear every day just to hear her say it). She ASKS to be tickled and loves to try and tickle you. She hugs the dog at least once a day. She kisses characters in her books, she HUGS THE GROUND. Seriously.

*Griffin is a goober. He also sounds like Chewbacca. And OH MY GOODNESS is he a mama's boy. Penny was always more of a Grandpa's girl (and still is) but sweet baby-jesus-on-a-stick Griffin LOVES his mommy. I am not complaining. One day he'll slam doors in my face so I'll take the love while I can get it. Don't get me wrong, he loves his Daddy too - but the child will leap out of Daddy's arms when I pass by.

*Bryan and I are sick. Boo. Not really big news, but it's certainly no fun. Luckily yesterday was the last day of school before Thanksgiving break so I have a chance to recuperate. I'm looking forward to spending a week with the kids. I miss the SAHM gig. I have a ton of papers to grade, but I can do that during naps and at night - during the day I will soak in as much of my munchkins as I can.

All for now - must get back to my babies!

Tooth 4 - and an apology to Griffin

G-man got tooth #4 two days ago...

Which brings me to the first of what I am sure will be many apologies.

Dear Griffin,

Mommy is sorry that a blog listing your many accomplishments and milestones are not written or posted 2 seconds after said accomplishment or milestone. I am sorry that your every waking moment is not spent taking thousands of pictures which I then wade through a post ad nauseum. I am sorry that when you look back on this blog as a young adult that you will not see as many entries gushing over your infant years as there are of your sister.

Having two babies is hard, and it's even harder when mommy and daddy are both working and in school. We don't have a lot of free time (especially since you're not fond of sleeping) and blogging and picture taking have become low on our priority list.

But let me assure you that even though we are not obsessively chronicling each moment of your life, we are noticing and celebrating each new step you take. And let me also assure you (young adult Griffin who is possibly reading this) that we are having FUN. You are a joyful, smiling baby who keeps us busy. You love to move, jump, laugh, and play. Every moment we spend with you is a full moment - and so even if we had the time we probably wouldn't take it to blog since it's so much fun just being your parents.

Granted, it would be a lot MORE fun if you'd sleep so we could sleep (or blog, whatever), but at least when you wake us up in the wee-small hours of the morning you do so with a smile on your face and big slobbery kiss (or you try and punch us in the face, but I know it's out of a combination of love and an inability to fully control your arm's movements).

So anyway, we love you very much. The number of pictures or blog posts in no way represents our love for you or your sister. And one day when you have kids (PLEASE let that be after college) you will understand that while second babies get the shaft when it comes to pictures and baby books they get just as much love as first babies... more in some ways since your sister loves you as much as we do. You may not believe it when you read it (and she may never admit it when she's older) but Penelope adores you. She won't go to bed without giving you a kiss and even shares her Elmo dolls with you. If that isn't love I don't know what is.

Love,
Mommy

PS - you love your sister too. Every time you see her you smile... and she's one of the few people who can always make you laugh and you stare at her with adoration when she's near you.

The end of August

I have a few seconds so I figured I'd update.

Penelope:
She probably has a vocabulary of 100 words right now. She adds to it every day. Now, she doesn't use all those words everyday, but she's got a lot of them. About a dozen or so she uses *with* her signs which makes me quite happy. I want to get her into a signing program so she can use sign more often. One of my biggest hopes for both kids is that they're fluent in sign. I'd also like for them to be fluent in Spanish but I don't know enough to speak to them exclusively in Spanish... I use as many words as I know. I really should finish up my Rosetta Stone program.

Anyway, she's started climbing - but not Gus or Orson style (Gus & Orson are friends of hers). Just little climbs, and I'm ok with that. She's a little cautious, which I'm also ok with.

She loves loves LOVES to dance. She's got quite a few "moves" in her dance repertoire, and it's pretty hilarious.

She also loves to help. She enjoys wiping G's face with the burp cloth, covering him with a blanket, washing her hands, putting stuff in the grocery cart, etc. Yesterday we went grocery shopping and she spent the entire time helping me put things into the cart. It took a little longer than normal, but she had a lot of fun. She was also running between Bryan and I so she got in a fair amount of exercise, our grocery store is warehouse sized.

Griffin:
Still waking up 3 times a night, but since we're still cosleeping I can just nurse him back to sleep. He's going to be tougher to get to sleep on his own since he's not at all interested in trying to self soothe, but we'll deal. He's a cuddler which is both sweet and annoying. Sweet when we're falling asleep and annoying in the middle of the night when I want to change sleeping positions.

He's also a chatter. Man that kid can talk. "Squeak, squeak, squeak" all day long.

He loves to sit up, and attempts to launch himself out of his baby chairs (other than the Bumbo, he can't escape from that). He also loves his sister, most of the time when he laughs he's laughing at her.

No teeth yet, but he's teething like crazy. He's super drooly and still a spit up machine.

We're still nursing and we'll see what my supply does. We've made it to 4 month + some and that's a great accomplishment for us both.

My camera battery died so no pictures now, but I'll charge it and take some more. They're getting huge. G is in 9-12 month clothes and Poe is still 3-4T depending on the outfit.

An updatey type thing

Both kids are asleep and I just submitted the worst paper I've ever written so I have a little time to update. I've been meaning to write a couple of posts about a variety of things but it's so hard to find the time (I must sound like a broken record at this point).

So let me sum-up.

I'm madly in love with both of my children even though they've started conspiring to drive me crazy. Penelope's tantrums are more frequent, which isn't unusual considering her age. And really, they're not that bad... but MAN she can scream.

She can also be really sweet. She loves to share her toys with Griffin. When she pretends to make tea she'll give him some (which means she shoves the toy cup in his face, but at least she's sharing). She also loves to bury him under her stuffed animals, give him books, and give him lots of kisses. She calls him "bubba" and "dude" and will greet him with "hi dude" on occasion. It's adorable.

And he loves her too. His face lights up when he sees her - he's got a great grin and they'll spend a bit of time staring and laughing at each other. We're still waiting for his first belly laugh, but that should be soon. Penn had hers around 3 months and we're coming up on that mark for G.

Other "new" words... sign: giraffe, elephant, bird, cookie. verbal: dude, cheese, ice, teeth, meow, woof (which sounds like "ffffffff")

We've been thinking about potty training lately. Penny has asked for a diaper change on a couple of occasions and lately she's taken to coming into the bathroom when I pee and sitting on her potty chair. I have a little too much to do during the day to focus on "real" potty training, but we'll work on that this summer. We might do the naked-outdoors-for-the-weekend trick and see what happens.

Pen's moved up to the tub for her baths... she was in a duckie tub-thing that fit inside of the bathtub but she outgrew it awhile ago and it started leaking air (it was an inflatable) so we finally got rid of it. She's doing well. Her cousins come to visit the first week of July and I'm looking forward to cramming all the kids in the tub for one big splashy mess :)

Their visit should be a lot of fun. We're so glad they're coming out! They're driving all the way from Wyoming so it will be a long trip, but a fun one. Plans so far are to catch a Rivercats game, hit the beach, the zoo, Fairytale Town, and spend some time at the pool. P is going to LOVE having the kids around!

I just finished up my first class since Griffin was born. Grades will be posted by Friday so we'll see... through week 3 I have a 98% but I totally half-assed my last week's assignments and am not expecting to get all As on those. So this class might be my first B of Grad school. Or not.

I start student teaching in August (did I already mention this? I forgot). And while I'm looking forward to getting into the classroom I'm also nervous about leaving the kids for so long. Being a stay at home mom is exhausting (well, a SAHM looking for work), but I do love spending my days with the kids. Not everyone gets the chance to spend this much time with their kids at this age and I'm trying to appreciate every moment (even the screaming tantrum ones).

Ok, I should really try and sleep. Maybe Griffin will be nice and let me have 6 hours uninterrupted... he did that 3 nights ago and it was AMAZING.