Eleven

Carys, you're eleven months old today.  What's shakin'?

It's true...the rhythm IS gonna get you!  You've started dancing, and it is so funny to watch.  You shake your head very seriously as you bop about.  Your favorite music seems to be anything with a really strong bass line.  But, other than that, you don't care what type of music it is - classical, techno, commercial jingles, and sadly, the reviled "Friday" song.  (Seriously, Kohl's was it necessary to use it in your commercial?!)

(I have video footage of the phenomena, but it appears that someone has stolen all of our phone/video camera USB cables and replaced them with ones that go to whoknowswhatelectronicdevice, sigh...)

You have somewhat successfully been moved into Sister's room.  You've spent the last two weeks sleeping in the crib.  But, it's not a perfect arrangement yet.  You still have a little bit of trouble sleeping through the night.  Thankfully, Sister is a deep sleeper!

You have 4 teeth and are working on your one year molars.  (This most likely contributes to why you're not sleeping so well as of late.)  Your new favorite teething toy is your finger.  You can get your finger right back there where it hurts the most.  You love to use those 4 teeth to eat all kinds of yummy things.  You like crackers, waffles, and bananas.  And, you also seem to enjoy sneaking a piece of Penny's dog food.  Boy, do you get mad when I have to fish it out of your mouth!

You stand up on your own all.the.time.  You have started pushing around the giraffe scooter just as Sister used to do (sideways).  You can scooch around a table or any other object.  You can also walk as long as you are holding onto someone's hands.  You're going to be fully mobile any day now.

Your other new trick is your kissy face.  We say "Kisses!" and make a smacking sound, and you will make kisses, too.  Mommy loves this, of course!

I can't believe you are going to be one year old in one month!  We are so thankful for each and every moment with you!  You make my heart swell!

Dinosaur Museum

We did a lot of fun things while we were in Virginia, but one of the things I was most excited about was having the chance to take Cora to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaur fossils. The Friday that we were in Virginia, we got our chance to venture out into D.C.  This involved a bit of a long trip on the Metro.

One of our girls enjoyed it; one did not...

What we saw next more than made up for the questionable Metro ride.

Dinosaurs!  That is a pic of one excited little girl!  We saw

 Quetzalcoatlus

 Stegosaurus and Brachiosaurus

 Triceratops

and, of course, T Rex!

At the outset, I really wasn't sure how long (not so) little missy would last at the museum.  But, she absolutely loved the museum.  She practically skipped from exhibit to exhibit.  (Unfortunately, she didn't stop long enough for us to read anything, but we SAW everything on the ground floor.)  We even saw the ocean and mammal exhibits.

Her favorites were the African mammals, natch.  (She's been on a Lion King kick lately.)  She was excited to see 'Simba' and to learn how a lion retracts his claws.

The wee babe enjoyed this silly monkey most of all.

After a quick trip to the gift shop where Cora selected her own stuffed stegosaurus, Steggy, we were ready to brave the Metro and D.C. rush hour traffic again.  Both little missies fell asleep in the car.  I'd say that's the sure sign of a great day!

The Long Journey, 2011 Edition

The guilt of my blogging absence has caught up with me.  I can no longer sit idly by when I have such excellent blog fodder to share.  So, let me put it in a nutshell for you:

• 11 days
• Over 3000 miles
• 4 states, 3 state capitals, the nation's capital
• pumpkins, snow, dinosaurs, princesses, pink gorillas

A picture preview of the journey:

 (Arkansas)

Where we saw

and even

I have lots to share.  Stay tuned!

Cora's Kidisms - Candy Edition

When I buy candy for Halloween, I buy the kind that I will not be tempted to eat.  Otherwise, I have a tendency to sneak a candy or 17 before the trick-or-treaters even get to the door.  Since we were in Virginia for Halloween (more on that trip to come), I didn't have to worry about having candy around.  I did, however, have to worry about scarfing Cora's candy.  Witness the conversation that took place while I rifled through her candy bucket on our drive back to Texas:

Me: Cora, do you want to eat some candy?
Cora: No, I don't want candy.  I want my apple slices.


I don't even know who this kid is or where she came from!

Now witness the conversation John, Cora and I had while discussing the sudden, ahem, drop in supply in Cora's candy bucket.  It seems that someone, ahem, was dipping into the supply while a certain three year old wasn't looking.

Me:  I noticed Cora ate a lot of C-A-N-D-Y today.
John: (sheepishly) Uh, yeah, that's who ate it. You know this is one of the only years we'll be able to sneak her C-A-N-D-Y.
Cora:  Mom, I need some K-E-Y-O-U-C!


I guess a certain little missy didn't want to be left out of the spelling fun.  Good thing she didn't know what we were spelling!

Happy Halloween!

From our two little pumpkins

Fri-Deja Vu

Cora - August 2009

Carys - October 2011

Ten

Carys, you're ten months.  A whole new world is opening up for you.  (Mommy's not ready!)

The big news around here is that you now sleep through the night.  I think you unfortunately take after your momma.  You're not a heavy sleeper, but you go to bed between 8 and 9 and you sleep until around 7.  Your momma is everso thankful!

The other big news is that you are standing on your own.  You spend most of your day standing up next to something.  A couple of times, you've let go to hold on to a toy.  You  can stand pretty well until you realize that you're not holding on.  Then, it's panic and the inevitable plunk down on your bottom.

 'No more pictures, Mom!'

Your two bottom teeth are all the way in, and you are cutting your top two teeth.  You don't drool much, but you sure do like to chew.  Unfortunately for her, Perdita bears the brunt of this proclivity.  Although, in a pinch your fingers seem to work just as well.

You are a very adventurous eater.  In fact, most nights you eat the same food that we eat.  I had been preparing you different meals, but you kept giving me this longing look while we ate our dinner.  It seems like you are pretty anxious to be like Sister in any way you can.

You vocalize a lot.  Today you looked at me and said "mama."  Needless to say, I was over the moon!  (I know that it was just a happy accident, but isn't that the way we learn to speak?!)  You love to purr, too.  You sound like a happy little kitten when you get going.

You forever make my heart swell!

Cora's Kidisms Rub-A-Dub-Dub Edition

Cora and Carys love bath time!  Little did I know how much easier it would make my life once my girlies could bathe together.  The other night, I got them all prepped for the bath.  After I turned the water on and returned to the girls' room, witness the conversation that took place:

Me: I see two naked girls in here!
Cora: I'm too naked?!


I love that girl!

Cora's Kidisms - Hints of Sarcasm Edition

Supposedly, three year olds don't have the capacity for sarcasm.  I think I have to disagree.  Witness some conversations we have had recently:

Cora:  Look!  Do you see that bus? (gesturing at some random point off in the distance)
Me:  Oh, is that a bus over there? (looking off at the same random point)
Cora:  No!  That's not a bus.


Mmmmkay.

And, then of course there was this conversation that took place this afternoon.

Me:  Hey Cora, do you see that airplane?
Cora:  Yeah!  I see it up in the sky!
Me:  Hmm, where do you think that airplane is going?
Cora:  To the airport!


Mmmhmm, well 'scuse me!

Stats

You know, I figured that parenting would teach me a lot about a lot of different things in life - faith, psychology, nutrition, human growth and development, economics.  But, I had no idea that parenting would teach me lessons in physics.   During this season in my life, I am learning about density.  You see, nothing to me seems heavier than sweet bebecita in her carseat.  I guarantee that she AND the carseat weigh a good 5 to 10 pounds less than (not so) little missy.  Nevertheless, if you give me a choice, I would carry Sister for miles and miles before having to heft around that carseat.  Density, folks!  Bebecita is built more like a cannonball (a sweet little cannonball, natch, but a connonball nonetheless).  I'm teetering on the edge of wishing Carys would grow up a little to graduate from that carseat and wishing she would stay at this age for a lot longer.  Such a funny little paradox!

Anywho...last week, Carys had her nine month appointment with our pediatrician.  Her new stats are:

Weight: 16 lbs, 12 oz (11th percentile)
Height: 26 inches (5th percentile)

So, since her last appointment, she has only gained 1 lb and 3/4 of an inch.  Looks like our little chubilla is starting to plateau a little bit.  She can still fit into much of her 6 month wardrobe.  (Awesome, considering it is still in the 90s and 100s here!)  But, we're working our way into the 9 month wardrobe, too.

The big news around this doctor visit has to do with Carys' sleeping patterns.  We went over all the developmental stuff, and when it came to the question of whether Carys was sleeping through the night, I sighed and said a resigned no.  Then, Dr. Mitchell spoke the words that changed my life:  "She does not need to get up in the night anymore."  Hallelujah!  My exact words were, "That's all I needed to hear!!"  That night, I put her down at 8:30 (she had been staying up until 9:30 or 10).  And, I did not get up when she fussed at 3 and 5.  That was torturous, folks!  But, the next night it was better.  And, the next night, she slept until 7!  We're not out of the woods as far as her sleeping patterns are concerned, but I feel loads and loads better since I'm getting at least 6 hours of sleep per night.  Now, if we can just get through all this teething...

Wordless Wednesday

Nine

Carys, you're nine months old!  What's shakin'?

You are a mover and a shaker.  You are everywhere and in everything.  Naturally, your favorite things to play with are forbidden - remote controls, telephones, Sister's jewelry, shoes, Penny's toys, knick-knacks, Sister's potty.  You're working hard on learning boundaries, but you're a quick study.  You are very familiar with, but also very responsive to the word 'no.'

You love to pull up on the coffee table.  Usually, you only pull up to your knees, but every once in a while you stand.  I love to see your sweet little face peaking up from the other side of the coffee table.  You always have a twinkle in your eye when you are successful.

You have two bottom teeth.  And, they are sharp little buggars!  One of them is almost all the way in.  The other one is still working its way out.  Your favorite teething toy is our coffee table.

You love to feed yourself.  You eat a lot of different things as long as you are in control of the food.  So far, your favorite things are pancakes, watermelon, and pumpkin bread.

You love to be outside.  Sometimes when you are a little cranky, we hit the big outdoors.  You love when the wind blows through our trees.  You also love all the tiny acorns that you can try to put in your mouth - see paragraph re: moving and shaking!

You are finally starting to sleep longer at night.  It is taking tough love which is very hard at night.  But, you are so very much happier in the morning when you get a good night sleep that I know it is worth it.

You love Perdita.  That is the best $8 I have ever spent.  Your face glows when you see her.  Poor Perdy has taken a bit of abuse at your hands.  You love to chew on her tail, paws, ears, nose, anything you can get in your mouth.  It's so stinkin' cute, though, to see you curled up with her in your crib.  Sweetness personified.

Your eyes are still bright blue and show no signs of changing.  Will you be our little blue-eyed cutie?  Your hair is coming in and getting longer.  After your bath, we can see little curls right behind your ears just like when Sister was your age.

You love Sister, and Sister loves you.  We couldn't have asked for a more tender sister relationship.  What a blessing to watch you to grow up together.  Our prayer is that you girls will continue to be best friends forever.

Sweet baby, you make my heart swell!

More 'Mastics

Actually, now she refers to at as GYMastics.

And, oh, how we love gymnastics!  Our lesson is bright and early (at least for us), and (not so) little missy insists on wearing her leotard all the live long day.  Although, according to her, it's a 'leotard shirt.'  And, these are the kinds of questions I'm peppered with on Tuesdays:


Should I wear my leotard shirt for nap time?
Should I wear my leotard shirt in the backyard?
Should I wear my leotard shirt at the supermarket?


I'm really happy with the gym that we chose.  Cora is in a 'mommy and me' class, and I'm a huge fan of their methods.  This gym in particular gets the kids on the apparatuses right away...as in on the first lesson.  Cora has already done some drills on the balance beam and the bars as well as on the trampoline and some other neat teaching apparatuses.  I love seeing how the skills that Cora is working on will translate into the more difficult and complex ones as she gets older.  (Olympics 2024!!)

Her favorite thing, by a longshot, is jumping on the trampoline.  She especially loves the long trampoline that has a mirror beside it.  A certain someone enjoys watching herself as she jumps/runs down the line.

Action shot!

She does also enjoy the balance beam.  The one for the preschoolers is a couple inches wider than a standard one.  Mommy likes that!

The bars are probably her least favorite.  She is the most resistant on them, but at this age, she's mainly just working on becoming familiar with everything.

I was even able to coax a smile out of her.

And, I'll leave you with this as a final thought.  Cora's prayer Monday night:

Dear God,

Thank you for our food.

Thank you for our family.

Thank you for our Jesus.

Please help me tell Coach Misty how to do my exercises.

In Jesus' name,

Amen

Oh, heaven help us!

Swings

The other night we took the girls over to one of the parks in our neighborhood.  As I put Carys in the swing, I realized that this was the first time in her 8 months that she had been in a playground swing.  I felt a little twinge of guilt about her lack of experience until I remembered that it had been exactly 9 million degrees outside for the past 4 months.  Mamacita doesn't do extreme heat.  So, up until this point, Carys must have thought that all playgrounds are attached to restaurants that sell chicken nuggets!  

We also convinced Cora to finally try the big girl swings.  The combination of the significant distance from swing to ground along with Cora's penchant for letting go of protective measures definitely kept me on my toes.  (It is not helping that in gymnastics, she spends a significant amount of time getting encouraged to jump off of high places, lol!)    She has become aware of the magic that is the iPhone, hence the whining at the beginning of the footage.  Don't tell anyone, but there may or may not be a princess dress up game on a certain football loving, home-improving, car enthusiast's phone.  The things you are willing to do for your kids!!

Cora's Kidisms - Self-Medicating Edition

We have a little tradition over in our neck of the woods.  I'm not sure exactly how it started, but it may be one of my favorite family customs.  Every Sunday before church, we get donuts.  Usually, we favor Shipley Donuts, but since pumpkin spice donuts are back at Dunkin Donuts, we've been regulars over there.  Now that Cora is old enough, she gets her own sack of donut holes.  In fact, on Saturday night when we tell her that we are going to church in the morning, she always adds, "And get donuts?"  Clearly, she is my child - in that aspect at least!

Yesterday morning, she woke up and told me that her tummy hurt.  She proclaims that several times a week, and I have a sneaking suspicion that she is mistaking hunger pangs for pain.  (These tummy aches never seem to impede her ability to go to gymnastics, or to the library, or to the park, or to playdates, or any other place, you see.)  So, since she didn't appear to be in actual pain, we had the following conversation:

Me:  Do you know what will help your tummy feel better?
Cora: What?
Me:  Donuts!


Sure enough the stomach pains magically disappeared after breakfast.  That afternoon, little miss took a nice long nap.  When I went in to get her, we had the following conversation:

Me:  Hi Coco!  Did you have a good nap?
Cora:  Mommy, my stomach hurts.  Do you know what will make me feel better?  Donuts!


She is a mess, I tell you!

I'm Learning!

You would think that parenting the second time around would be a piece of cake.  But, it appears that Carys may in fact be totally different than her big sister.  I know you all are totally shocked by that.  Children, different?  No way!  We're shifting paradigms all over the place over here.

Most of you know that it has been a bit of a struggle with Carys not sleeping through the night.  While I know we are not the only parents in the world who have ever had to deal with this, our situation is complicated by the fact that Cora spoiled us by sleeping through the night at 11 weeks.  Paradigm shifting.  It is getting better slowly and surely, but it takes tough love.  While my resolve is strong in the middle of the day, I can freely admit that I am weak in the middle of the night - especially when she is always so happy to see me.  It's kind of hard to say no to that precious smile.

The other tug-of-war has been in relation to solid food.  For the longest time, her sensitive little tummy couldn't handle it. She would be miserable when we made her eat solids.  Now, she is ready developmentally, but has absolutely no interest in baby food.   With her being eight months old, though, I felt a lot of pressure to have her quite accustomed to solid foods by her next well check.  But, I was having to shove the food into her mouth in order to get her to take some bites. It wasn't until she lunged at my muffin the other morning that I realized she might rather feed herself than eat that mushy, watery stuff.  Sure enough, she loves it. She was so happy to participate in our letter p breakfast the other morning.

Not that I blame her for her preference.  I would rather eat fresh peaches and pancakes, too!  So, I'm learning.  I think if you give me another 15 or so years, I will finally have it all together!

This Breakfast Brought to You By...

...the letter P!

noshing on pancakes and peaches

Cora and I started school the other week.  It went okay.  Actually, I was pleasantly surprised at how much she retained from the one day that we had 'formal' schooling.  But, something was nagging at me about the whole situation.  I just felt like the formal process that I was trying to routinize was not terribly developmentally appropriate for a three year old.  I mean, that was one of the reasons that I really became disillusioned and disappointed with the public school system.  For fear of the big, bad TAKS, most of the developmentally appropriate practices (free choice centers, recess - yes, recess is necessary! - hands-on exploration, unit study, etc.) had to be pushed to the side in order to drill and kill the objectives on the test.  As I mentioned in my previous homeschooling post, a big part of this process is going to include the retraining of me.  Needless to say, at this point, we are taking a more laid-back, organic approach to learning.  What does that mean, you ask?  Well, basically, I'm just capitalizing on those little teachable moments as they occur throughout the day.

Folks, brace yourself for another embarrassing parenting confession.  Some days, Cora gets to watch more than her fair share of television. (gasp!)  Quite honestly, if Carys has had a rough night, television is a bit of a survival strategy for this mamacita.  (God bless PBS Kids!)  After an episode of Word World, Cora has suddenly become very interested in letter sounds.  And, as the teachable moments come up, we explore them.  So, today when the auspicious circumstances came up, we learned all about the letter P.  It turns out that Cora requested fresh peaches with her pancake breakfast.  We discovered the same sound at the beginning of both words.  We also discovered that Penny begins with that same sound, but that water does not.  Thus far, we have learned the letter sounds for b, c, h, m, p, and s.  


Not surprisingly, we are also studying dinosaurs.  At the library this morning, we found several age appropriate nonfiction books about them. But, I think, at least when it comes to giant reptiles, Cora may be teaching me!  Cora was deeply engrossed in a dino ABC book when she came to the letter J (for Jurassic).  Witness the conversation that took place:

Cora: What's this page?
Me:  That's J for Jurassic.  Oh look!  It's T Rex. (I pointed to one of the three unnamed dinosaurs on the page)
Cora: That's not T Rex.  That's Allosaurus.

Folks, I know better than to argue.  Sure enough, when I researched it later (Yes, I had to research it.  Yes, Cora generally knows more about this stuff than me.), Allosaurus is from the Jurassic. T Rex is from the Cretaceous.  sigh  As if the thought of homeschooling wasn't daunting enough!  Looks like I'm going to be learning right along side the little paleontologist!

Family Fun Weekend

This past weekend, we got to host my entire immediate family for a little mini reunion.  And, being the terrible documentarian that I am, I took a grand total of 0 pictures.  (hangs head in shame)  But, we did have tons of fun.  Scott, Celeste, Hannah, and Miriam came up Friday night, and Cora could not have been more excited. I took the girls out to the front yard as we waited for them to arrive.  After each car would drive by, Cora would say, "No, that's not my cousins."  Cora was over the moon when they arrived!

Both Celeste and I were a teeny bit apprehensive about how well the girls would all play together.  Hannah is 3 years older than Cora, and Miriam is a year and a half younger.  Fortunately, though, Hannah and Cora both love dinosaurs.  I think they bonded pretty well.  At one point, Hannah decided that they should play school.  So, by the end of the weekend, Cora was coming up to her saying, "Hannah!  Hannah!  It's time to play school!"  Such cuties!   We let Hannah have a 'sleepover' in Cora's room.  She camped out on the floor in a sleeping bag.  There were a fair few giggles after bedtime, but isn't that to be expected?!  On Saturday night, she told Cora, " I can't wait for you to come to my house so you can sleep on MY floor!"  These girls are a hoot!

Miriam and Carys were both kind of in their own little worlds.  They are still a bit young to play cooperatively.  Miriam may be the cutest 19 month old ever!  She walks like she has places to go and people to see.  I don't think I've ever seen a toddler who moves with such purpose!

Mema and P-pa came down on Saturday morning to spoil their grandgirls.  This was the first time the three families had been together since Carys was born.  And, somehow, the big girls ended up with some new books and dinosaurs while the little girls ended up with some new squirt toys and books.  (It's too bad no one loves these girls!)  P-pa even managed to get a few pictures of the four girls all together.  (Miraculous!)  It was definitely a great weekend!