Bits and Pieces

Charlie helped me make some cupcakes this afternoon. He liked putting sprinkles on them. He liked eating the cupcakes even better.

Charlie is getting better at giving Lucy treats. Usually he says "sit boy" and then quickly throws them on the floor at her feet. But the other day I helped him hold the treat out in his hand for Lucy to take. Charlie was nervous, but Lucy was really gentle.

Charlie often calls his brother "Bay-bee-lee-am"- all one word. One of his favorite exclamations lately is "Goopa!" I'm not exactly sure what that means. He calls his favorite cereal "floop lutes." I have to laugh every time I hear that.

Charlie is funny about some of the food that he likes and doesn't like. Last week at our favorite Indian buffet, Charlie asked for some of the anise seed sprinkles as we were leaving. To our surprise, he really liked them. It was just like the first time he asked to try the saag paneer-- and now it's probably his favorite food. In contrast, when we were at Disney I tried to give him chocolate milk as a treat, and he did not like it. He also wouldn't drink apple juice out of a sippy cup. I presume it's because in his mind, juice is supposed to come in a box.

Swimming lessons have been very good for Charlie. This morning they tied a noodle around his waist and he swam on his own for the very first time. He seemed very proud that he did it by himself. He is getting more used to going under the water, although he still doesn't like it too much. Getting his head wet is not as traumatic anymore, anyway. We've signed him up for next session, also, so he should be good and ready for summer.

Liam loves to sit in the bumbo seat that Charlie never liked much. This morning we pulled out the exersaucer and let him try that for the first time, and he really enjoyed it. He loves being upright. Earlier this week we gave him his first rice cereal. Not much went down, but he didn't seem to hate it.

He's getting so big-- wearing size 2-3 diapers now for over a week. We had him at the doctor this morning for a cough and possible ear infection, and he weighed over 16 pounds. He's been keeping us up at night, between the cough and a gassy tummy and what we think is the start of teething. He has been drooling like crazy for the past 3 days. We can't keep a dry bib on him for more than a few minutes.

It's looking like rain tomorrow for the neighborhood Easter egg hunt, which is sort of a bummer. We'll have to do our own hunt inside the house with our plastic eggs. Luckily, Charlie won't know the difference.

Cute stuff Charlie does

Sometime shortly before our trip to Florida, Charlie took to saying "that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!" I'm not sure exactly where he got that, but it sure is darned cute to hear him say it.

While we were in the airport on the way back from Orlando, we went to get some milk from a Burger King. Charlie wanted to know why Old McDonald (aka Ronald McDonald) wasn't on the bottle.

Charlie had a helium filled balloon from when he got his haircut. After only about 24 hours, it had sunk down to the ground, no longer floating. Charlie asked me to "put it back up in the sky." At that moment, I sure wished I could!

One day a couple of weeks ago, Charlie was busy cleaning up all his toys. Then he paused, and told me "no snack tonight!" When he could see that I wasn't sure how to react, he told me to cry. I guess we've been using these techniques too much (or maybe just enough?)

Charlie is very proud of having his little brother at daycare. He loves to show him off to his own classmates and say "that's MY baby brother!" For a few days this past week, he was calling his Brutus Buddy his "baby" and was mimicking what we did to take care of Liam.


When we took Liam for his 4 month check-up at the pediatrician, Charlie was with us and we tried to entertain him with books they had at the office. When we'd get a few pages in to a book and he would discover a page that had been torn, he'd close it and put it aside, wanting a new book. As we were leaving the office, and he got a sticker from the front desk, he told them that they needed to get some new books, because the ones they had were torn.

4 month check up

Last Tuesday we took Liam in for his 4 month well-visit with the pediatrician. He weighed 15 pounds, 4 ounces (70th%). His height was 25 inches (55th%) and his head was 16 3/4 inches (45th%). He's a little bigger than Charlie was at this age (except the for the head). He's really caught up, after being born lighter.

His health is good in general. He caught Charlie's cough while we were in Florida, and when it didn't clear up after about 3 weeks, we put him on some antibiotics and it cleared right up. Other than that, we've had no worries.

I've survived the first month as a working mother of two

So I've been back to work a month now, and I guess you can tell I've been busy, because I haven't been posting much here. I'm going to try and catch up over the next week or so. I've got lots of notes I've jotted down and many things to tell you.

I guess I should start off with the tale of our first week back from Florida. As I mentioned at the end of my last post, we returned to a bit of snow. It just kept coming after that. We took both kids in to daycare the day after the Super Bowl, and then John and I went to brunch and to see a movie. We both wanted to relax before heading back to work, and this way Liam also had a relatively short first day so he could get used to things. He did fine. That night it snowed.

We received the notice about 5am the next morning that daycare would be on a 2 hour delay. Nice way to start back to work. We took our time getting ready, and left the house in just enough time to get to daycare just as they were supposed to open. The interstates still had quite a bit of snow on them, and the commute took us a little over twice as long as normal. When we arrived at daycare, we found out it was closed. They had changed the status from delay to closed right after we left the house.

There was no time to get back home before John's first meeting, so he took Charlie and I took Liam and we went to our respective offices. Charlie hung up John's phone while he was on a conference call, and I had to run across the street from my office to Walgreens to buy extra diapers for Liam, but other than that, it was rather uneventful. When we got to a stopping point in our work, we headed home and worked there for the rest of the day.

In the coming weeks we had a lot more snow, and several days where we carpooled in to work because of it. It was a record February in terms of snowfall for Cincinnati. It's been warm (up to the 50's-60's) and sunny here the past few days, but we still have piles of snow by the driveway. In the backyard, it was up to Lucy's tummy, and she kept retracing her steps so as to not have to plow a new way through the snow. When John took Charlie out back to build a fort in the snow, it was too deep and he didn't like it. So they came right back in.

Charlie went to two birthday parties in February that he enjoyed quite a bit. He got to dress as a fireman and sit in a real fire engine at Jack's 4th birthday. And he got to go bowling for the first time at Ryan's 5th birthday up in Columbus. He didn't have to wear bowling shoes, because they didn't have them small enough for his size.

He also started swimming lessons at a local indoor pool on Saturday mornings. We were surprised when we got to the first class to see that his buddy Oscar was enrolled in the same class! He still doesn't like to get his head wet, but we're seeing some progress, and really hope this will help our outings to the pool this summer a lot more fun.

We're still working out a routine in the mornings as far as getting the kids ready and in to daycare before work. Every day is a little bit different, depending on the weather, our schedules, and when the kids wake up. But Liam seems to do pretty well and has a good time while at the center. Charlie started an enrichment program called "Stretch and Grow" which he really seems to like. He loves helping with Liam's bottles at drop off, and he gets upset if I go get Liam before picking him up, because he likes to help at the end of the day, too. Pretty soon we'll be talking about transition up to pre-school for Charlie. How time flies!