kiddos

• cute micah-ism: she says "sneak" instead of "peek", so when she's holding one of her babies all swaddled in a blanket, she comes up to me and says, "sneak inside, it's a beautiful newborn baby!"
• every time i ask micah where something is today, she says "i ate it!" and giggles hysterically.
• rowan says da-da, bah-bah, and oh-oh-oh, and an assortment of other sounds and noises... except mama.
  
• when micah and i sing, rowan dances by wiggling his bum and waving his arms.
• rowan will not let me read to micah. when i sit down with her to read, he starts to cry, rips the book out of my hands, and wants to nurse. i don't know why.
• micah made up a song about caterpillars yesterday. here is an excerpt: "i'm proud of caterpillars, they know how to climb. they go here and there, they go up, they go down."
• rowan's new nickname is "linebacker." he frequently gets a running start, stretches out his arms, and tackles us full on, usually while we are sitting on the floor, and usually resulting in a headbutt to the nose, chin or sternum.
• rowan is magnetically attracted to anything plugged into the wall. lamps, the power cord for my laptop, our cell phone chargers, the nightlight in our bedroom, anything. i am amazed that he has not shocked himself yet.
  

it's a gorgeous day outside; we're going to stroll down to the park soon. micah's nose is running less today, and her cough is much better. rowan's nose seems to be needing fewer wipes, too. we're going to take an empty coffee container and two plastic shovels to play with. at the park, rowan loves the swing and the woodchips, and micah likes to climb the rope pyramid and the rock wall.

bedtime is near. it's been something of a challenging evening... rowan has been on the fussy, clingy, won't-let-me-put-him-down side, and micah's doing the whiny, babytalk thing. and they both still have runny noses, and micah has a cough. sigh. i think it started out as allergies and is turning into a light cold for both of them. i'm glad i'm well; getting sick with josh out of town would be very un-fun.

today's taste test revealed that brown sugar & cinnamon mini bagels are absolutely delicious toasted with nutella, and a glass of ice cold milk.

belated kid news: micah and rowan saw the pediatrician last week for their 3- and 1-year checkups (a little late, i know), and also got their flu shots. micah weighs 27 lbs (50th percentile) and is 36" tall (25th percentile). rowan weighed in at 21 lbs (90th percentile) and is 31" tall (25th percentile). neither of them had any problems with the flu shot. they both cried when the needle went in, but were fine once they had the cool bandaids and the disney character stickers. micah deliberated for about 30 minutes, then finally chose the lower part of her pant leg where her sleeping beauty sticker wouldn't get bunched up or folded. rowan wadded his elmo sticker up and stuck it in his mouth. this was the first vaccine either of them has ever received. josh and i have decided to get them both fully vaccinated, and are going to start them on a slow but steady catch-up course. they'll get one shot at a time each, with 4 weeks in between. it'll take forever, but it's what we're comfortable with. luckily, our pediatrician's office is more than happy to work with this schedule, and is not put off in the slightest by all my concerns about mercury and aluminum content and other weird chemicals in vaccines.

yesterday was my grandfather's birthday, and we celebrated at my dad's house tonight with dinner and yummy lemon pound cake. micah and my foster brother, zach always have such a blast playing together.

staying home

we had plans this afternoon to meet a friend of mine at a park downtown and have a picnic lunch together, catch up while micah and rowan played on the playground. but my babes still have coughs and runny noses, so we had to cancel... something i am getting way better at doing. i handle disappointment and changes in plans very immaturely. i get my hopes up about doing something, go to sleep the night before thinking about it and planning on it. when i have to cancel, i tend to... throw a fit? how unattractive for a 26-year-old. i've been working really hard on this lately. when my kids are sick, or even tired, we stay home. when i'm sick and tired, we just stay at home. people understand; no one wants to be exposed to sickies, anyway.

i just fed micah and rowan some lunch: saltines, organic peanut butter and milk for micah ("i don't like cold peanut butter!"), and sliced turkey hot dog and organic green beans for rowan. rowan's lunch included a successful lesson in where to put his sippy cup when he's done drinking from it: in the little circular space on his booster seat tray! his sweet little face lit up when he put it there instead of throwing it on the floor, and micah and i cheered. micah gets so excited when rowan learns new things!

it is really disturbing to me how many tiny, tiny children play in the alley behind my duplex unsupervised. i swear, there are toddlers - i'm talking 2 or 3 years old, looked after by kids only in elementary school. in the alley, and in the street. i know parents can be viscously judgmental of other parents, and i strive not to be that "they obviously don't care about their kids" kind of mom, but... in the alley? really? that's akin to smoking while pregnant. you just have to be a flaming idiot. or an a**hole.

i'm feeling very snacky today. i haven't really eaten a meal yet, and it's 1:30 pm. i've had an oatmeal cookie, a pear, some string cheese, and a dr. pepper. i think i'll fix myself a sandwich here in a minute...

after several days of asking micah not to whine when asking for things, she just walked up to me and calmly said, "mommy, i would love it if you would hold me and nurse me right now." i couldn't pick her up fast enough.

rowan's party

we had a birthday party for rowan 2 weeks ago, and my mom took some beautiful photos... here they are. the last one is my favorite : )

a quiet house, time to blog

my babies are sleeping, and i finally have internet service at my house. sweet! this is fun.

first things first. my latest food obsession: pepperidge farm brown sugar & cinnamon mini bagels. they're good with butter, with cream cheese, plain and untoasted... and tomorrow, i'll find out whether they're any good with nutella. stay tuned.

rowan now has four teeth on top and two teeth on bottom. one more is breaking through on the bottom, but it doesn't seem to be bothering him, except he is a little restless at night. i never thought i'd be so happy that one of my children would take a pacifier.

my nighttime issues are way more about micah than rowan. she still wants to nurse to sleep and isn't interested in trying to fall asleep by any other method... last night marks the third time i've tried to initiate night-weaning with her. we'll see how it goes. i know i'm part of the problem; sometimes i really don't mind nursing her to sleep, and sometimes it drives me crazy. i need to be consistent! the other thing that's been going on with micah is her using sounds and noises and hand gestures instead of words. she has a huge vocabulary and can be very precise with her language when she wants to. but lately when something upsets or frustrates her - like when her brother smacks her or grabs from her, or when i do something for her that she wanted to do "by her own self" - she lets out with a loud, whiny "unnnnnhh!!" and kicks her feet or waves her arms. i have an instantaneous angry reaction to this... which doesn't help, but it really makes me furious for some reason. i wonder if it's got something to do with seeing and hearing rowan get a response from her dad and me when he uses sounds and hand gestures... and her just wanting to try it herself? i don't know. tonight i talked calmly with her about it and we came up with a phrase: "don't tell me with noises, tell me with words!" the next time she starts with the inane noise to get her point across, i'll try it and see how she responds. coming up with a solution together that way usually works well for us; she remembers what we decided, and is able to calm down and do what we talked about. sometimes it takes a few conversations for it to sink in, but we've been successful working things out this way in the past.

last night, on a lark, i decided to try to teach her how to write the letter M. she was able to do it several times; i was so excited! she also memorized our address (everything but the zip code) and repeated it back to me several times. this morning she was able to recall our house number and street name, and when i asked her to write an M she said she was too tired. : ) maybe i can homeschool her without destroying our relationship after all...

rowan has been practicing pointing at things. micah and i enjoy naming all the things he notices: the cat, the dog, the computer, the TV, the window, the bed, etc. and he has been so affectionate, with everyone! he hugs and kisses josh and me all the time, sometimes without being asked. the other night in the tub, he just wanted to lay in micah's arms. i really wish i had gotten a picture. and the day before yesterday one of my good friends was over at our house with her kids, and rowan kept toddling over to her and throwing his arms around her! : ) what a sweet, sweet boy.

oh, i went back and added some pictures of rowan in the hospital to my first post, "whirlwind", in case anyone would like to see them.

i miss josh!

my husband left earlier this week on a business trip, and i miss him. the first couple of days are always okay because the kids and i are settling into a routine without him, and some things are easier... like bedtime, because he's not here to get the kids riled up, or he's not sitting in the living room while i'm trying to nurse micah to sleep but she won't fall asleep because she knows her daddy's on the other side of that door and she hasn't gotten to play with him nearly as much as she'd like to today! mealtime also seems to be easier, because i'm the only one involved in the decision-making process. the kids will eat whatever i fix for them.

but bathtime is considerably harder. our usual routine is i get in the tub with both kids, and as soon as micah is clean she gets out. josh is usually there to towel her off and keep an eye on her while i bathe rowan. but when he's gone, i have to cajole micah into staying in the bathroom with rowan and me until we're ready to get out. bathing myself is also next to impossible. yesterday i brought a basket full of toys into the bathroom, but the toys barely held rowan's interest and i spent most of my shower picking them up out of the tub and rinsing the soap and shampoo off before handing them back to rowan so he could toss them in again.

i don't just miss josh because of the help he lends with the kids, though. i miss him because he's my best friend! i talk to him all day long; we call each other at least 3 or 4 times during the day, and we're usually together all evening, talking about our days and the kids and stuff we want to do and places we want to go. as cheesy as it sounds, i feel like a big piece of me is missing when he's gone like this, out of town.

he doesn't particularly enjoy having his picture taken, so this is the only one i have of him on my computer... i love his smile in this picture, though.

this is josh holding our daughter and the son of a close friend.

i hope he's having fun. he works with one of his best friends, and he's also good friends with his boss, so i bet he is having a good time. boy time. at least we get to talk more often this time. last time he left town, he was in a more rural area in texas and his cell phone was on roaming the whole time.

(the word 'time' is in this paragraph five times.)

i'm counting the days until he's home again. : )

trick-or-treating is for the young-at-heart

trick-or-treating was so fun and nostalgic for me! my dad and i reminisced about childhood halloweens while micah and zach, my foster brother, ran up and down the front walks of spooky house after spooky house, giggling and counting candy. we remembered one year when it was so cold we had to wear heavy coats over our costumes – what a drag! i don’t think my mom ever got out of the van that night, as we drove around to different neighborhoods, looking for the best houses. and one year not too long ago, my dad put up some stellar spooky decorations on his front porch, including a 15-foot-tall cloaked, bug-headed monster… and not one trick-or-treater showed up all night long. he was so disappointed.

today i went to a baby shower for one of my closest friends, jessica. she’s having a baby boy in january. baby showers are so exciting! she got tons of great stuff, some fun and some functional. josh took micah and rowan to see his grandmother in rowlett, so i got to spend the afternoon mingling and snacking and visiting with my friends! it was so much fun!

i'll post pictures of the kids in their costumes soon...