Bedtime

I don't generally link to other blogs here -- it's not really my thing -- but the accuracy of the following article was so frightening I actually cried with laughter:

http://www.scarymommy.com/bedtime-stalling-101

Governor's Inaugural Ball

As is now our every-four-year tradition, we attended the Governor's Inaugural Ball last night. That's us with Jay Inslee (the governor) above. You can see all the photos I took, or check out smaller photo galleries from The Seattle Times and The Tacoma News-Tribune. In at least four of the photos we were standing either behind the governor, or just outside the frame. In this photo:



we're somewhere behind and just to the left of the governor. If I had more resolution I might be able to tell if perhaps that's one of our heads. Anyway, the food was excellent, and we managed to carry on our tradition of getting an autograph from the Secretary of State (the newly elected Kim Wyman); we asked for the embossed seal that we had received from the previous Secretary, and she made us one; it turns out it was her first-ever (and she actually made the first one sideways, so we got to keep the second-ever one). The food was excellent; she had her own unofficial buffet in her office which started us off (and was a heartier meal -- with ravioli and meatballs -- than the super-fancy but smaller hors d'oeuvres which we didn't actually manage to get to until near the end of the evening). Top it off with all-you-can-drink inauguration wine (with even a Riesling varietal available!) and a splendid time was had by all.



(The middle photo was clearly taken by one of the photographers with the yellow press stripes in the lower right of the bottom photo, if that helps you look for us in the middle photo.)

Christmas 2012

Vivian opening presents.



Theo opening presents.

See all the photos.

Christmas this year took place twice -- once in the Polish tradition of opening presents on the evening of the 24th, and once on Christmas morning. We often didn't know who sent what present ahead of time, so we picked roughly half for the 24th. Our original plan was to wrap two presents for each kid, then leave the rest in boxes; Vivian doesn't care and Theo very much enjoys opening boxes. However, he had so much fun opening the wrapped presents (and some of the presents inside the boxes were also wrapped!) that we ended up wrapping some more for the 25th. One really cute thing that happened while waiting for the presents on the 24th: Theo learned the words "Death Star". The way you know Santa has brought presents to open, since you're awake and everything, is you go out and look for the first star in the sky that's visible. We told Theo he had to look for a star, and he found a moon. I said "that's no moon" but Sarah didn't place the quote, so I finished it (technically the quote ends "it's a space station", but I said "that's a death star" which Theo immediately picked up on).

Here's an unedited video of the 24th:

Vivian's Weigh In

Vivian tipped the scales at 16 lbs and 2.5 oz at the doctor's office this morning. That means she crossed two percentile lines back up and the doctor was very pleased with her results. Her mother was satisfied but not as enthusiastic about that number. Vivian moves back into the 28th/32nd percentiles on the CDC/WHO charts. On both she crossed the 10th and 25th percentile lines which puts her almost precisely back where she was before she stopped gaining weight.

Her height of 27.5 inches puts her right at the 80th percentiles on both charts, and her head circumference is in the 40 some odd percent at 44.5 cm.

She is still chipper and smiled at the doctor but did not like the look of the nurse, giving the nurse a forehead crease whenever she made an appearance. She did love grabbing the protective paper on the exam table and ripping it into edible bites.

Vivian at Seven Months

I haven't been intentionally waiting to post Vivian's seven month update. But I'm just now getting around to it. We took her seven month giraffe photos right on time after the holidays. And I've even gotten those photos uploaded (see the end of the gallery for the most recent of my photos) too. Now I'm just behind on posting the photos on the blog.

In the meantime, enjoy this brief update on Ms. Vivian, who continues to delight everyone she meets. She's still got a pretty easy temperament, but beware removing something from her grasp without giving her an upgrade. She can screech just like her bigger brother. She adores the box of balls and will spend lots of time sitting on the floor and playing with the contents, taking one ball out after another until they all get away from her. Then she wiggles until she flops over and gets stuck and the fun starts all over again. She is also still in love with her bunny block. She knows the exact sound it makes and will spin in her exersaucer or rotate until she sees it. She often drops it shortly after but every time it makes a comeback she is just as thrilled to see it again.

Another sound that Vivian has identified and responds to every time is the sound of o's hitting her high chair tray. She loves picking up food and eating it. So far o's are her main source of finger food, although we have started peas and occasionally tiny bits of apple as well. Her diet also includes avocado, oatmeal, bananas (still her favorite), sweet potato, applesauce, pears, yogurt, mango, cottage cheese, and rice is next on the list. She's totally ready for crackers and teething biscuits except that she hasn't been introduced to all the necessary ingredients. She can catch o's between her thumb and finger now, and even can shove three (or more) in at once if she gets them all in her hand. The second and third ones are incidental but she appears pleased with the results. If she's hungry, she can eat an entire banana in one of her three daily meals no problem. If she isn't into eating, I lay out a few o's and squeeze bits in as she picks up an o and opens her mouth to insert it. She's also started formula, but she isn't super enthused about it. She will take a bottle of anything (breastmilk or formula) only if it's about hot as it can get without burning, she's in her room in the dark with the noise machine on and she's wrapped up in a swaddle, with bouncing and shushing. Under those exact circumstances it's fine. Otherwise she will fight or play with the bottle but heaven forbid she eat from it.

As of yesterday we aren't swaddling her for sleep anymore. She had gotten to be an expert at removing herself and I got tired of trying to contain her. We left one arm out for about a week and then I switched over to the sleep sack. It hasn't affected her sleep any, which is to say it didn't get any worse. She goes down between 7 and 8 at night and will sleep up to four hours in that first segment of the night, although two to three is much more common. After that she is up every two hours or as often as every forty minutes for a snack. She's been getting up much earlier too, as early as 5:35 and 5:45 a.m. I blamed those early wakings on soaking wet diapers from all the overnight nursing. She's currently sleeping in a disposable at night until we get the go ahead to start weaning her off night feedings. That has gotten her to 6:45 or so, and sometimes as late as 8 a.m. to start the day. She can make it on two naps per day, one in the morning and one midday, but still does better if she had the third nap in the late afternoon or early evening, usually around 4:30 or 5 o'clock. She can and will skip the final nap if we are out and about. And earlier naps will be shortened to about twenty or thirty minutes tops if she is not at home in the crib. At home a nap is usually at least an hour, and can go as long as two hours every once in a while.

Oh, and she has a crib in our room now, having graduated from the bassinet. She's still up much too often at night for me to consider putting her in with her bigger brother. She didn't seem to notice that transition either, and still spends more of the night than I would like in the bed with me anyway.

Vivian has some good consonant noises now like b and d, and still loves to babble. She will talk to just about anything but is also completely content to play on her own. She adored both the ribbons and the wrapping paper from the holidays. She preferred to eat the paper and would do so every time anyone turned their back on her. When she Skypes with relatives, she looks around at the doors waiting for them to come in when she hears them. Otherwise she isn't much interested in the computer. But other electronics look very promising if only she could get her hands on them. She has been exposed to TV at other houses and only seems to notice when football is playing.

Vivian sits quite nicely on her own now. The main dangers to her stability are her older brother and when she reaches, leans, or twists to acquire an object that's out of reach. She doesn't show much interest in rolling as she does not like to be on her tummy. She is okay resting on her back but won't roll onto her stomach, only onto her side to retrieve something and then return to her back. If placed on her tummy, she rolls ones to correct the situation. Vivian loves to stand up. She particularly enjoys being placed in front of a sofa or a coffee table as there are always interesting things on those pieces of furniture for her to enjoy. She definitely loves the Johnny Jump Up, and will spend a good deal of time in it if allowed as well.

Vivian has decided that baths are not all bad. We started putting her in the tub with Theo. For the first time, she didn't cry when she went in. On all other bath occasions, she has cried for a bit before realizing that baths, bath toys, and big brothers can be fun. Now she seems to remember that baths are fun. And her memory is excellent. If you take her into the bedroom where the noise machine is on, she just starts crying. She can be consoled once she realizes it's just a diaper change or something else, but she makes it clear she does not enjoy being put down in there alone.

Vivian has, as far as we can tell, no teeth and no signs of teeth at seven months. She has another checkup with the doctor at the end of this week, so he can give us his professional opinion on that. Expect to hear more about that in Vivian's next post.

The Weather

If you read this blog directly on the web (and not using an RSS reader), then a few days after Christmas, you might have noticed a new weather report on the left hand side of the page. If you do use an RSS reader, here it is:



This is the result of one of the coolest Christmas presents I received this year (and I received a lot of very cool presents -- thank you!): the Ambient Weather WS-2080 Wireless Home Weather Station. It is super awesome, because you can see the weather history at our house, not just the general Seattle area. I was careful to mount it on the roof, so the wind speed and direction should be accurate (though I worry that being only a foot or two off the roof will artificially inflate the temperature during the summer). We also get this awesome set of graphs:



All of this is available because I hooked the station receiver up to my computer and downloaded some software which is configured to send the data to wunderground.com and to pwsweather.com. Both of these show the same data, in slightly different ways. The rainfall rate is particularly neat; there's a self-dumping rain guage which allows the graphs to show how heavily it's raining, and to compute hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and annual rainfall totals. And the software keeps track of records of all types, including longest dry streak and longest west streak.

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As an aside, if you read a lot of blogs and aren't using an RSS reader: well, you should. The one I personally use is Google Reader. Just click the red subscribe button and punch in the URL of the blog you'd like to follow, and it will keep track of any new unread posts. Very useful if you read a bunch of blogs on a daily basis which don't always have new content -- you can go to one place and see all the new stuff that people have posted.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2013 from our happy girl and all of us!

Zoo Lights at Pt. Defiance Zoo

In keeping with our new-found Tacoma tradition, we went to the Pt. Defiance Zoo's Zoo Lights on December 22nd. We arrived just after it opened at 5pm, having driven through a progressively heavier and heavier rainstorm which ended merely moments before we arrived. The optimist in me prevailed, however, and it didn't rain again until we were leaving. Curiously, the crowds got more and more crowded as the night went on.

When we told Theo we were going to a zoo, his first reaction was "animals!". Then "eat!". He wanted to see the animals eat, and really, he wanted to feed them. (He did also say "lights", as he'd seen Christmas light displays before.) He was not disappointed.

Theo also had a great time watching the tiger cubs play with each other ("bite!") and, on the way back out to the car, riding on the carousel. (The linked photo is one of the rare times we can get him to smile on a carousel -- usually he has what we call his "carousel face" on, which is this serious demeanor which we've learned means he's having a really wonderful time, and will want to ride again -- which of course we did.) Vivian also had a great time on the carousel, and we particularly liked the "you don't pay if you're standing" policy.

Stay tuned for some more updates about Christmas activities!

Model Train Festival

On Christmas Eve Day (that's Dec 24th) we took Theo and Vivian (but really, Theo) to see the Model Train Festival at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma. It was well worth the drive. I don't really know what they normally have, but they had every open area crammed with a different modelling club displaying their model train layout. All sizes from N-scale to actual ride-able trains (very appropriately sized for a toddler) were represented. My favorites were the N-scale layouts, since you could fit a lot more tracks and details in the same amount of space. The larger models ended up being essentially just three tracks side-by-side without the detailed towns that N-scale allowed. If you're in the area, the exhibit runs through New Year's, and I highly recommend it, even without kids.

Merry Christmas!

Happy holidays from all our little elves!

Eating onions

This is Theo eating an onion like an apple.

Vivian Weight Update

We weighed Vivian on an unofficial basis (but an accurate scale, unlike the ones at home) on Thursday evening. In just shy of two weeks, she's hit 15 lbs, which is an increase of 1 lb and 3.5 oz. Yes, that's great news. Yes, it's taken me this long to post the update. Yes, that's actually a very impressive turn around time these days. I'm also in the process of uploading my 2000 photo backlog. You might think I'm kidding, but I'm not. You will see the posts for and to those sooner (or more likely later).

In the meantime, I have all six months of Vivian's giraffe photos uploaded, which means I'm current on that at least and can share them with you. Check them out here to see how she has (or in some cases, hasn't) grown. Michal also has his (much better) photos of them same thing uploaded. You might have seen the most recent of those (five months) on an earlier blog post.

In the meantime, Vivian is on the three meals of solids a day and nurse as often as she wants program. Her solids include (in roughly the order they were introduced) avocado, bananas, oatmeal, sweet potato, yogurt, apples, and pears. She's due for mangoes as soon as I can get them pureed. So far, she's a banana girl. If it has bananas in it, she'll eat it. So she gets banana yogurt, banana oatmeal, banana avocado, and just plain bananas a lot. She's also onboard with the sweet potatoes, but the pears, which I thought she would love, she was not totally sold on. For Vivian, that means she definitely noticed the new food, but was willing to eat it in that way where you had to entertain her to get her to open her mouth to insert food. In all other items she's pretty ambivalent, especially without the banana additive. Lucky for us, banana is just about the easiest thing to add to anything as all we have to do is keep bananas on hand and mush them with a fork into whatever we want her to eat.

Grow, Vivian, grow! Your next check-up is less than a month away.

Orange Shindig

This year's Orange Party was the Orange Shindig, and was a casual afternoon affair. Check out the photos.

More 5 Month Photos

Sarah previously posted about Vivian at five months, but I just got around to uploading the photos I took.

Happy Six Months Vivian!

We celebrated Vivian's six month birthday on Thursday by flying home. Both kids were superstars for the trip, and Vivian particularly enjoyed the extended mama lap time.

Vivian had her six month appointment on Friday. She hasn't grown a smidge. In fact, she's lost half an ounce and now weighs 13 lb 12.5 oz. She measured 26.5 inches in height which is a half inch longer even though she has completely outgrown her six month footie pajamas in the last few weeks. Her head circumference is 43 centimeters and is the only measurement tracking in the percentile scales.

The solution: feed her more. Of everything. She started solid foods with avocado at five and a half months. But she got constipated, and that combined with parental laziness (and travel) means she was only eating solids once a day every other day or so. Now she gets three meals a day. Her diet includes banana and as of yesterday, homemade oatmeal cereal. We plan to add yogurt and sweet potato next week.

She is also allowed to nurse as often as she likes. That's nothing new except at night. She has probably been waking more frequently to eat and now if she even peeps she will be getting fed. We are also supplementing her twice a day with our frozen supplies.

Despite the lack of growth, Vivian is still our extremely happy girl. She definitely has a mama preference but is otherwise extremely sociable and friendly. What's more, she isn't bothered at all by commotion regardless of the source. Five kids under five at Thanksgiving dinner? (Four year old, two year old, 19 month old, five month old, and four month old - it was chaotic!) Vivian is the only one who wasn't crying at some point. She sat and watched everyone eat and talk and made no complaints.

Vivian rolls both ways now, but not more than one roll at a time, and sometimes she still complains about being horizontal. She prefers to be upright, and standing is best. She likes to be where the action is and hates gong into any room used for sleeping. She does not like getting dressed, particularly the head and arms portions. And unlike her older brother, she can not stand bath time.

She loves to laugh and smiles frequently. She hates the car, possibly because she can't see anyone else. But even having an adult in the back doesn't always solve the problem. She reaches for things, will sneak a bite of anything she can sink her teeth into before you even know she has a hold on something, and transfers things easily from hand to hand.

She can sit unassisted now although I would never leave her in that position. She's just as likely to lunge for something as to lose her balance and she is strong. She can chuck a toy across the room and launch herself towards things remarkably well.

She continues to delight everyone with her conversations. She has added a few consonants, mostly m. She may or may not be signing but routinely makes the sign for milk every time she is nursing and not noticeably any other time.

Vivian loves to go out and about and discovered the joy of swinging at her grandparents' house. (The swing set and slide were built especially for our visit.) She also loved swinging in the hammock.

Vivian's true obsession right now is tags. Any kind of tag. A removable after purchase one, a permanent one, plastic, paper - she is not picky about the particulars.

She also loves her brother and his curls, thoroughly desires his milk sippy cup and his lovie, and thinks Tetley is the height of hilarity.

We will continue to stuff her full of food and look forward to where the next months take us!

Boeing Field

As part of Theo's second birthday celebrations, we inquired with our friend Bill if he could get us a tour of the Kenmore Air planes based at Boeing Field. He came through, much to Theo's delight. Theo wanted all of us to get on board, buckled his seat belt, and started saying "Go!". It didn't take long for us to realize he wanted to go for a flight. See all the photos.

It's Christmas Time!

That means you should be aware of the following links:

• Our baby registry (somewhat outdated!)
• Theo's Wishlist
• Vivian's Wishlist
• Sarah's Wishlist
• Michal's Wishlist

Theo's Two Year Photos

I updated Sarah's recent post on Theo turning two with photos (well, one photo, plus links to many, many more). In case you missed it, that post is definitely worth reading! (And if you want, here are all the photos.)

Theo at Two Years

I wrote this on October 22nd thinking I would get photos uploaded to share with it. Clearly that's not going to happen anytime soon. Instead I am posting the text now and will share photos at a later time.

Theo celebrated his second birthday in great style last weekend. He woke up to four new balloons (a firetruck, one with a dog, a basketball which is his current favorite type of ball, and a happy birthday balloon) as well as one smilely face one for Vivian. He had a huge stack of presents, including several planes, a fishing game, a play kitchen complete with pots and utensils, puzzles, books, clothes, a balance bike, a Curious George lunch box, a magnetic doodle pad, a train track expansion set, a fish sticker poster, and some new blocks. He was so excited he went more than two hours without a drop of milk, and didn't eat breakfast until well past nine. We got an assortment of baked goods from the local deli and he selected and chocolate covered eclair for himself although he also sampled some of everyone else's choices. We attended a local fall festival complete with firetruck although Theo seemed more interested in the playground that's always there than the one day event. In the afternoon we offered to go to the pumpkin farm but Theo wanted to stay home and enjoy his new toys with his grandparents which was fine by us. To finish the day we hit Red Robin at the waterfront, where he had unlimited strawberries and feasted on other tasty things like fruit and fries with ketchup as well as some milkshake and he scored another balloon.

On Monday he had his two year appointment at the pediatrician. He was not sold on the doctor's office at all, perhaps because we'd been to the new office two weeks earlier when both kids had developed a cough to have them tested for whooping cough. As a sick kid he had to wear a mask. And by had, I mean we struggled to keep it over his mouth and he fought and screamed. He also objected quite obviously to our wearing masks. (Vivian, as an infant, escaped the mask curse as she was covered with a blanket over her car seat.) He wanted to see the fish in the waiting room but couldn't keep his mask on.

With that in recent memory, he was in no mood to put up with the doctor or nurse. He did not want to get dressed or weighed, and he objected to us doing those things with Vivian as well. He also had a terrible runny nose, which was unfortunate because it meant he had to get the flu shot instead of the flu nasal spray at the end of the visit. He did score a lollipop and a sticker as well as quality time at the fish tank afterwards, so I think he ended up on the positive side.

Theo weighed 27 lbs and 9 oz, which places him in the 45th percentile on the CDC (ie American) scale and in the 59th percentile on the WHO scale. He is 37 inches tall, which translates to 98th CDC and 99th WHO percentiles. His head is 19.09 inches, or 45th CDC and 57th WHO percentiles. He met all the development questions (and exceeded several) except that he has not really started combining his words.

He has quite the vocabulary in single words but rarely puts two spoken words together. Most of his words tend to sound similar, and you really have to know him or the context to decipher them. For example, jez (pronounced yesh), fish, dish, and George (as in Curious George, a current favorite in reading material) all sound similar. He can say Grandma, but tends to use mama for both Grandma and Mama, and dada or daddy for both Daddy and Granddaddy. He says kitty and meow, woof for all dogs, and everything that ends in g gets an extra "ie" tacked onto the end: pig becomes piggy, bag is baggie (both of those make sense to me) and as of today, egg seems to be eggie. He can't really pronounce "s" or "r" sounds but makes reasonable attempts. He can identify most body parts by pointing (head, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, chin, shoulders, belly, back, knees, feet, toes, fingers, hands, etc.) and has no trouble following directions and finding objects (handing over the blue block, locating jez, finding his socks or shoes or hat, etc.). He also can find anything of interest in books and identify it. Recently he's been enjoying the hidden objects type books, both the smaller board book versions as well as the full on large paper kind.

Theo recognizes quite a few letters. His favorite seems to be G (for grandma), but he can also pick out O, T, E, V, D, M, A, I, R, and probably some others I've forgotten about. He knows some of his colors, most recently adding orange to the collection, when he came out of his room after napping prior to the orange party and all the furniture had been converted to orange. All he said was "orange." He definitely knows blue and black and green and yellow and red and purple, which seems to be his favorite of late.

He is still obsessed with fish and airplanes. Helicopters are also very good, and trains are a close second. He has a new obsession with both bridges and tunnels, perhaps as a result of multiple 10 plus hour car trips in Europe. As for animals he loves dogs and cats.  And piggies, which has to be the cutest word since velcro and trash.

His favorite books are still Lift and Look Planes, Airport (with more than 80 flaps), and Choo Choo, as well as anything with Curious George. That's probably the result of him watching one episode of Curious George on the Kindle to exhaustion during our recent travels.

Theo is an excellent climber, having recently mastered the ladders at the playground. He loves slides and really any type of adrenalin rush, like being swung around or turned upside down and especially anything that involves getting dizzy. Theo also jumps fairly well. He has no trouble jumping to a lower height (off a step or something similar) and can often get some air just jumping in place. He loves to do housework, especially cooking and sweeping, hence the kitchen he got for his birthday. He has excellent aim with both arms. As a case in point, he recently picked up a small stuffed bird (golf ball sized), one in each hand, and chucked both of them at the same time at the dog. He scored direct hits with both of them as well. He kicks a ball with incredible aim, possibly even better than mine. And he has long since mastered going both up and down the stairs although I'm still too paranoid to let him do either alone or unassisted.

He draws quite well, actually reproducing something that looks like a fish, and he loves art. Some days we use the markers or crayons three to four times daily. He likes to have things (fish are the most popular, followed by airplanes) drawn for him, and he also enjoys sidewalk chalk. He finally clued into stickers in early September. Before that, he was horrified by the fact that they stuck to him and didn't come off. Now he seems to realize he can stick them to something besides himself and he really enjoys it. In some of his sticker books he likes to stick them all one on top of the other, but of course if it's something (a window, furniture, car, etc.) he will distribute them over a large surface area.

He can now both blow and catch bubbles. He also likes to catch them in his mouth and get down on his hands and knees to get the ones on the floor in his mouth. He can stack all sixteen cube blocks and most of his set of 25 (some in irregular shapes) in one tower. He also enjoys his Legos and has a great imagination with his magnetic wooden blocks, linking them together to create trains and building structures to serve as bridges and tunnels.

EAT
He is super good with a spoon, having recently discovered the wonder of adding milk to his cereal in the morning, and as a result of all the soups we ate in Poland where he got lots of practice. He drinks from an open cup without a problem but also likes to pour it down his front just for giggles. He has a distinct preference for his Nuk sippy cups with the soft spouts, and in particular for the one with the orange and blue dot design. He prefers it so much that in Europe we had to buy him a Nuk cup as we didn't pack any. (We took the insulated Playtex cups instead since he drank fine from them at home and they keep milk colder longer during travel.) He likes to eat from our plates still, and has no trouble eating as long as he is entertained, which generally isn't very long. He still isn't terribly into meats, but we can get him to eat hot dog with ketchup and sometimes deli meats. He loves his veggies, particularly the small frozen kinds but also fresh ones, with bell peppers often topping the list. He drinks about two gallons of whole milk a week - so much that I got sick of hauling it home and we have it delivered to our house weekly now. He has discovered sweets, and just recently cupcakes, which are extremely desirable even though he generally licks the frosting off without consuming much of the cake itself. He also loves the candy he received from his great grandfather. He still likes fruit, particularly strawberries, and generally prefers those over chocolate if the two items are identical except for flavor.

Theo is down to one nap since early July, at 1:00 in the afternoon. Except for a week in Poland where it lasted three or more hours, it's rarely more than an hour, and occasionally up to an hour and twenty minutes, which is a very good nap for him. We start the bedtime routine of changing, reading, and drinking milk at 7 or a little before and he's generally in bed no later than 7:30 and asleep anytime after that up until about 8. He gets up slightly earlier now, almost always before 7 a.m. but rarely before 6:15. He will sometimes stir in his sleep and say things like "no" or call out for mama but he goes back to sleep with no intervention.

He still adores Wheels on the Bus but in the past two weeks has added "Run Baby Run" by Caspar Babypants to his favorite songs.

Wlodek Meets Vivian

My dad came to visit for a long weekend recently. See all the photos. (I also spent some time recording videos on a new service, but I haven't yet figured out how to actually share those videos. So there may be a new update in the future on this same subject!)