Baby’s First Thanksgiving

 Picture taken before (homemade) applesauce was rubbed into his hair!

  We had a good Thanksgiving.  We started the day with Richie’s first bike ride.  He enjoyed wearing his helmet and was amazingly tolerant of the trailer.  By “tolerant” I mean that he rapidly fell asleep and slept through the ride, the park, and the ride home.  Anthony rode behind Daddy on the one-wheel bike while I towed the trailer.  It was nice being out on bikes as a family!

  Anthony was a super helper for Thanksgiving dinner.  He made the cranberry sauce, helped with both pies and made the whipped cream.  He even ate some dinner this year, the cranberry sauce, the apple sauce and pumpkin pie with whipped cream.  (I think he tasted the mashed potatoes.)

  Richie ate a few bites of turkey, rubbed apple sauce in his hair and rejected the mashed potatoes.  When we had leftovers today he rubbed the potatoes in his hair.

Christmas Lights

 Every year Vasona Park puts on an amazing display of Christmas lights.  Normally it is a drive through, with an enormous line.  We went a few years ago with Ciaran and while we enjoyed the lights, driving through a park looking at lights wasn't really my thing.

  This year in celebration of the 15th anniversary of the display, Vasona had a walk-through evening.  It might be before Thanksgiving, but I was excited to take the boys to the amazing lights display. 

  We had a great time.  The excitement started with a school bus ride from a nearby church.  The walk was a little over a mile and Anthony was oohing at the lights the whole way.  He particular enjoyed his walk through the "Dinosaurs Den."  (Not sure why dinos are part of holiday lights, but its a tradition.)  We even got to take our picture with a dinosaur in a Santa hat.  Anthony took his sweatshirt off to show that dinosaur his dinosaur shirt.

  We waited in line for awhile for a visit with Santa.  Anthony "knew" this wasn't the REAL Santa, his beard wasn't real.  Richie was an amazingly good sport about the whole thing!

Tide Pools

 I'd wanted to take Anthony tidepooling for ages, but low tides were always at really inconvenient times.  Today the stars (well, moon) were in alignment and there was a low tide in the middle of the afternoon.

  It was a long walk out to the reef (a good mile), but Anthony was a real trooper.  Richie happily rode on my back in the ergo and took a little nap while we walked.  Anthony LOVED the tide pools.  He particularly liked poking all the sea anemone and looking for hermit crabs.  He also enjoyed playing in the water, in his jeans and tennis shoes.  (Daddy brought the car back as close as he could, so Anthony only had to walk half a mile back.)

  Richie loved playing in the sand.  He thought crawling in it was fun and happily played "chase the seagull".  Yes, he did have to taste the sand, too, even though I told him it wasn't very good.

Gingerbread Man

"The blue bag" is a weekly kindergarten homework assignment.  Every week Anthony chooses a new book from the selection to read and write a book report.  We read the book 2 days in a row, and then on the third day Anthony draws a picture about the story and writes a sentence about it.  (Dictating the sentence and then copying it is okay, too.)  He normally picks books we already have (Madeleine, Olivia, The Mitten) or stories he's quite familiar with. 

This week's book was "The Gingerbread Man" so in honor of the story we made gingerbread cookies.  Anthony enjoyed decorating them with raisins, but was a bit peeved that I wouldn't let him put frosting on them, too.  I was feeling a bit traditional and didn't really need to increase his sugar intake. 

We took several cookies to his favorite vendors at the Farmer's Market on Sunday.  It seemed more than overdue to repay their kindness to Anthony.  "Apple Lady" (aka Donna) was particularly pleased!

Anthony's Theatrical Debut

Saturday I took Anthony to see the CTC's production of "I don't want to go to bed."  As part of it, the "child" imagines how bedtime should be, playing with Mommy and Daddy instead of going to bed.  One of the games they played was "The three little pigs" and they brought children on stage to help be props.  Anthony desperately wanted to go on stage, fortunately he made it in as a brick.  His role wasn't quite as large as the sticks and straw, who got to blow down, but he was thrilled!

10 Months Old!

 Pudgers turned 10 months old on Halloween!

  At his check-up a few weeks ago he weighed in at 18 lb 3 oz and was 27” long.  He’s still holding steady at 25% for weight and 10% for height.

  His latest trick is standing all by himself.  He can’t do it for more than 2-3 seconds, but he keeps practicing.  He will do proper babbling, too.  Nice long chains of ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.  That’s his favorite, but I’ve heard all the other consonants, too.

  He’s also gotten much better about sleeping.  He’s only slept through the night twice, but he’s remembered how to go back to sleep after his bottle.  For the past two months he’s been waking up between 4 and 5.  Then he doesn’t want to go back to sleep by himself, so he ends up in our bed.  (We can’t have him waking up Anthony.)  Thirty minutes of playtime later he’d be back asleep and Bob and I would be done for the night.  Now we feed him, he goes back down, but then fusses for about 2 seconds before he rolls over and goes back to sleep.

His favorite foods are the “toasty carbohydrate” group—toast, graham crackers, and pancakes and the “sweet and squishy” food group—bananas, pears, and melon.  He did chow down on Safeway turkey meatloaf a few nights ago, so his diet is rapidly expanding.      

Lost His First Tooth!

 Anthony lost his first tooth today.  Unfortunately, he lost it in pretty spectacular fashion.  He took a bad fall off the jungle gym and landed face first in the wood chips.  He knocked out his tooth, which was ready to go, and did a real number on his lip, I counted at least five cuts.  Unclear where the tooth went, I assume he swallowed it.

  He wasn’t too concerned with the tooth fairy most of the evening, I think he was too busy being upset with his hurt lip.  Poor little thing.  We did write a letter to her and put that under his pillow.  I’m fairly confident she will find the missing tooth and give Anthony his prize.

  I’m working on getting adjusted to his new smile.  Its stunningly different!

Happy Halloween!

  The boys had a great Halloween.  Anthony had a Halloween party with the other kindergarteners followed by a school-wide parade.  I assume they did Halloween fun at Kids’ Place, too!

  You can't tell from the picture, but Anthony is sporting an awesome vampire costume and Richie is a monkey.

  We went trick-or-treating as a family to a few houses on the block.  Richard was thrilled to receive a box of animal crackers at one house; a treat he could actually enjoy.  After that I went home to hand out treats (books!) and Anthony went out trick-or-treating with his girl-pal Sydney.  Unlike some years where he and his friends ran from house to house, he and Sydney must have set some sort of record for slowest night ever.  Fine with me, he doesn’t need pounds of candy.

  He had fun, and that’s all that matters!

Pumpkin Carving Party

 Yesterday we went to a pumpkin carving party at Collin’s house.  (How is it that a three year old gets to claim possession of an entire house??)

  In the car going over there Anthony read the diagram (correctly) of the six steps to use the pumpkin carving kit.  He was a phenominal helper.  He practically did the whole thing himself, though Bob certainly helped with some of the fine detail.

  Richie was less than helpful.  He certainly was adorable in his tiger sweatsuit and monster shirt.  (Well, he’s adorable in anything.)  He had a lovely time crawling around, got up close and personal with a labradoodle puppy and played with all of Collin’s brother’s toys.

Monster Mash

 Tonight was Anthony’s first school dance.  He was very excited but very nervous at the same time.  He held my hand tightly as we walked over to school.  When we got there he immediately saw some kindergarten friends and I pretty much didn’t see him for the rest of the night.

  About my costume.  I started planning it about 2 days before the dance.  Key requirements:  no effort and only uses things that we already had at the house.  It came down to National Geographic Photographer (wearing Bob’s photo vest) or doctor.  Doctor won out, and I’ve decided to try and see how many costumes I can make out of my lab coat.

Ardenwood Farm

 A few weeks ago we went to the big harvest festival at Ardonwood Farm.  I'd wanted to go for a few years now, but this was the first year the stars were aligned.  We had an amazing time and were there from opening until closing!

  We started off in the cornfields.  We picked maybe 2 dozen ears of popcorn and then went to pick some indian corn.  It was tricky at first.  Navigating the cornfield wasn't easy, Anthony needed help picking the corn and Richie was trying to sleep in the Ergo carrier, but we managed.  Anthony was enthralled with the colors of the indian corn, he thought that was really neat.  We had to "pay" for our corn by donating 25% back to the farm.  He was really careful to save the prettiest corn for us.

Ardenwood is an historical farm; all of the activities were Victorian era.  We made homemade ice cream, pressed cider and toured the historic mansion.  After the magic show Anthony went back and picked a good dozen more ears of corn.

After all that, we went to the pumpkin patch for awhile.  It was a trick getting back to the car with the stroller basket full of corn, our lunch cooler, the diaper bag AND an enormous pumpkin, but somehow we did it.

Legoland

   We went to Legoland for our 10th anniversary last month.  (We did #9 better with a week in Hawaii.)

  Anthony loved Legoland.  He doesn't really appreciate lego bricks, but he thought mini-town was cool.  He really appreciated being tall enough to ride all the rides.  Richard got to crawl around in the toddler area for awhile.  Richard's favorite part of the trip was the disco ball in the hotel elevator.  He thought that was amazingly cool.  So did Anthony, he danced up a storm every trip.

Richard had one of those "we're never traveling again trips" as he only slept in our bed and kept waking up everyone.

Growing Up

 A sign that the boys are growing up.  Anthony and Ciaran rode the "Danny the Dragon" ride all by themselves.  I was a little nervous, its a long ride and "boyness" is multiplicative, rather than additive.

  They also enjoyed a new puppet show "Coyote's Giveaway", a Lakota tale, and prospecting for dinosaur bones.

  Richie pretty much missed out on all the fun.

Hair!

 Check it out, Richie is really growing hair.

School Birthday Party

 Anthony's school celebrates birthdays a month at the time, with all three kindergarten classes participating.  He really got to be the star of the show with 75 kids singing "Happy Birthday."

  Another mom and I split the work.  I made the cupcakes and sent some leftover paper goods from his party.  She provided party favors (books) and some fruit.

  He had a great time!

Birthday Party

 Anthony's sixth birthday party was a great success.  We had about 16 kids, mostly from his kindergarten class and a few kids from Kathleen's house and the neighborhood.  We held it at a local park which has a fabulous water play area which serves as a great ice breaker.

  It was the easiest party ever.  The kids played in the park and with the bubbles I brought.  At the end we did cupcakes and a pinata and everyone had a great time.

Six Years Old (and a loose tooth)

 Anthony is six years old today!!!!!

  We went to Fiesta del Mar (his and our favorite restaurant) to celebrate and he commented that his loose tooth hurt.  He's had ficticious loose teeth for over a year now.  But when I looked at him across the table, his tooth didn't look quite as nicely lined up as it usually is.  Sure enough, he finally got a loose tooth.  He is a bit anxious about it now.  Will it hurt when it comes out, will there be blood, who will take care of me when it happens, etc.

  Despite the lego in the picture, he really isn't into lego.  Magnatiles, on the other hand, are played with every single day.  Grandma Donna gave him an expansion pack of magnatiles for his birthday and he got to work with them.

  Other favorite toys include his baby brother, his scooter and his expansive collection of figuerines which live in magnatile houses.

  He is settling nicely into kindergarten, though I think he prefers playtime to work time.  His writing is still very much a work in progress.  His pre-reading skills, while strong before, have improved remarkably.  His latest trick is to break down words into their sounds and then spell them out.  As long as the letters follow "normal" rules of spelling, he can really do it.  He can't go the other way yet.  For example:  he knows that MAT is mmm-aaa-ttt.  M-A-T.  However, he can't read mat.  I assume that will come relatively soon.

  After school he spends the afternoon at YMCA run after care.  They seem to have a good program and he's made friends with a lot of kids, including a bunch of older girls.  Thursdays he takes Spanish after school.  He is enjoying that and I hope that exposure to the language will help him in the long run.

  Anthony is also very proud of the blisters on his hands from monkey bars.  I think he must play on them for hours each day.  His latest trick is shimmying across the moneky bars on the OUTSIDE bar.  He can also hang upside down from the horizontal bar.  Fortunately he hasn't tried to swing down that way, he reaches back up and grabs on to the bar to get off.  Keeping fingers crossed that there are no broken bones in our future!

Richie is Nine Months Old

Richie is growing so much, its amazing!

He crawls up a storm.  His poor little forehead is covered with bruises from running into things.  He's also fallen into the playroom twice.  (Its a step down and gating it off isn't really possible.)

He can easily pull to standing and has mastered a controlled sit, the kind where he lands on his bottom rather than falling all the way backwards.

He loves to jump.  He'll jump in his exersaucer or in the doorway jumper at Kathleen's.  If he's excited he'll jump his little bottom up and down while sitting and laughing.  It is fabulous!

Richie definitely understands the word "no".  The other day he was trying to get into the cat food and I said no to him.  He sat there and started crying because he really really wanted to play in the cat dishes but wasn't allowed to.  I doubt that phase will last.

He eats more solid food than puree now.  His absolute favorite food is graham crackers, which just make a nasty mess.  In this picture he's eating a delicacy known as "buttered toast".  (Whole wheat, of course.)  He is also enjoying pears.  Last night he ate chicken breast and pears for dinner. 

In terms of clothes he wears either 6-9 month clothes (which fit well) or 6-12 month clothes which are a bit roomy. 

Doctor appointment in a few weeks will give us a weight check. 

Beach Day

I'm catching up on old posts.

We had a particularly gorgeous weekend a few weeks ago, so I declared it was time to head to the beach.  Unfortunatley, Richie came down with a cold during the night, so he had to stay home with Daddy.  (I couldn't make Anthony miss a fun day just because brother was sick.)

It was a fabulous day.  We saw dolphins and seals.  He played in the water, played in the sand, walked on the beach exploring, found shells and made new friends.

Perfect day at the beach.

Eight Months Old!

 Richie is eight months old today!

  He's learned a lot in the last month.  He went from being a nervous sitter (who'd flop over quickly) to a sturdy sitter and can push himself to sitting like a pro.  Today he pulled himself to standing for the first time.  He can also stand while holding on to one hand.

  He's also achieved mobility.  He doesn't exactly crawl, but he certainly moved around.  His favorite destination is whatever Anthony is doing.  I predict that his first words will be "No Richard!"

  He's quite fond of baby mush.  He'll eat anywhere between 1 and 3 meals a day, depending on whether he's awake when we're eating.  If he's at the table with us, I like to have him eat a meal, too.  We've been experimenting with actual solids and he isn't really ready for them yet, though he does like to gnaw on melon slices.

  No babbling yet, but he certainly makes a lot of other sounds.  I figure he's been working hard on gross motor skills and babies can only learn one major thing at a time.  Hopefully babbling will come soon.

I'm not sure how much he weighs, but he's outgrown his 3-6 month clothes.  The 6-12 month size is enormous, though.

  We're working on the sleep thing.  'Nuff said.

Good Dental Check-up

Anthony had a fabulous dental check-up.  He was moderately cooperative for his cleaning, he hates the taste of the toothpaste.  At the end we decided to give x-rays a try and he was a pro!  No cavities AND the dentist says he'll be losing his first two teeth by the end of the year.   Poor kid desperately wants to lose some teeth, almost all of his friends have by now.   (I can relate, I was well into first grade when I lost my first tooth.)

Pascal the Cat

Pascal the Cat is settling nicely into our home.  It took him a week to come out from under the bed, but once he did he started playing nicely with the kids.  Anthony adores him and loves to play.  Richard finds him absolutely fascinating.  Last week I caught him trying to taste kitty.  He was sitting up in bed, I was petting Pascal with one hand while supporting Richard with the other.  I looked over and Richard was frantically leaning in with his mouth wide open, just wanting a little taste to see what the kitty is all about.

Bob has noticed a disquieting similarity between toys Richard likes the ones the cat likes.  Basically, if it makes noises when you bat it around they both like it.  He further observed that the cat is far more skilled at life than the baby.  (I would argue that Richard has more potential, though.)

Tae Kwan Do Party

 Better late than never…

  One of Anthony's preschool friends had a Tae Kwan Do birthday party over the summer.  It really wasn't Anthony's thing, but he had a good time.  At the end of the party each child got to break a board.  Anthony was really quite proud.  Bob was quite incredulous.

First Day of Kindergarten

 Yesterday was Anthony's first day of kindergarten.  He was SO excited and SO nervous.

  The year actually started on Friday with a new student potluck and an opportunity to meet the teachers.  He was thrilled to discover that his best friend from across the street was in his class!

  We were a few seconds away from leaving for school Monday morning when the parade of kids started.  Anthony immediately took off running to join everyone.  I took off after him, leaving Bob to get the baby out the door.  We did the obligatory photos while waiting for Mrs. Kovac to come and open the door.

  Once inside we did a little scavenger hunt "find your cubby, put your lunch in the cubby, find the bathroom, find the drinking fountain."  All this time Anthony was thrilled and also happy (bossy?) to help Sydney do it all too.

  Then it was time for Mrs. Kovac to talk with the parents for a few minutes and Anthony realized our departure was eminent.  The misbehavior began in a desperate attempt to get me to take him home.  I knew he'd be fine once we left, and he was.  Many of the kids were on the verge of tears, he was far from the only one.

I didn't get too much information at pick-up, except that he didn't have enough time on the monkey bars, and he told me that he got really scared when I left.  Today there was more, about what table he ate lunch at, which playgrounds he played on…

I took the day off so we could spend the afternoon together.  We had lunch with Daddy and then rode our bikes to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream with the Donahues.

I think we're off to a good start!

Seven Months Old

Pudgers is seven months old today!

As you can see from this picture, he can sit!  He doesn't sit well, he still has a tendency to fall front words, backwards or just a nice sideways flop.

He also managed to sit up by himself.  When I went to feed him in the night he was sitting up in his crib.  (He was supporting himself with one hand.)  The trick hasn't repeated itself yet.  I'm sure it was on accident.  He loves getting his legs up underneath his body and pushing his little tushie in the air.

His eating has gotten a lot better.  He's still not fond of apricots but will happily eat his pea/sweet potato mix.  We try prunes tomorrow, I'm sure they will be a hit.

He has lots of favorite things, besides playing with big brother.  Peek-a-boo is just so exciting.  His favorite toys include his Sophia La Girafe and the collection of birds from Aunt Julie.  He is also quite fond of a teething toy Kay put in his Easter basket.  He also enjoys chewing on his toes.  He can't get BOTH feet in his mouth at the same time, though not for lack of trying.

He is still a remarkably easy going little kid.  Basically, if he's crying he's either hungry or tired.  We've worked on improving his night time skills and he'll put himself to sleep in his crib now.  We read a story, put him in bed with his sleepy music and he falls right to sleep. 

Happy Boy

Of course he is happy.  He slept through the night for the first time!