Little Mice in a Field

Yesterday I took the morning off and chaperoned Conor's first field trip. 20 kids on a school bus was probably the best part--I sat in the back and every time we went over a bump I went flying in the air and almost threw up (another sign i'm getting old: in my opinion, the back of the bus is no longer the cool place to sit.) All the little 2-4 year olds snug in their seat beats, however, thought it was about the funniest thing ever. The squeals and yelps of glee were so funny to hear; every kid on that bus had a smile plastered on his/her face.

We spent the morning at the Emily Oaks nature preserve where C's class learned about life as a field mouse. Never one for subtleties, Conor declared he was not a mouse, but rather a scary rat (good to see his days living in Wicker Park have stayed with him...)

Latest Obsession

Madeleine's latest obsession: her tongue.

Busy Week

It's "only" been 10 days since my last post, but so much has happened in the kids' little worlds and now I'm never going to do the updates justice and I honestly forget all the best stuff about 20 minutes after it happens. But, here goes...

Madeleine's 4.5 month check up was last week (yes, supposed to be 4 months, but we got distracted. The good news is that I actually showered that morning and conor had on underware and his hair was brushed so i looked like a presentable parent.) Our little girl continues to be a not so little girl. At more than 16 lbs and 26 inches, she's in the 95%+ in all categories. But, overall Dr. Lechman said: "she's a perfect beauty." :)

Had a great visit with my dad. Conor loved having Pop-Pop here and he now tells his animals stories about the imaginary world of the goofy people.
This is my attempt to get a nice fall pic of dad with the kids. Poor Sadie looks like she's in a head lock. And of course, Madeleine is just perfectly behaved.

I couldn't get any of them to stay still enough to even get a picture that was in focus!
So, dad left and a few days later my friend Kristen came in with her daughter Kaylin. Like when Carrie and Paige came in April, it was fun, special and super bizarre to be hanging out with our kids. OUR KIDS! Seeing my old college friends just brings back these waves of memories of fun, carefree times and now when we get together we're in a completely different place...an amazing place, but very different. Conor and Kaylin had a great time together. Conor ran around the entire weekend...showing off for Kaylin by running in circles around the yard, the kitchen, the family room, the hallways, the aquarium, the field museum all while screaming something along the lines of "I'm a dinosaur" or "I'm a lion" or "I'm a shark" etc. etc....basically his version of flexing his muscles for the cute girl at the bar. :)

Conor learned to spell his name last week--insert very proud smile here. It was really interesting to see the progress over the last week until he finally put all the letters together. Every morning at school the kids have to find their name on a piece of paper and mark that they're present that day, so Conor has been coming home and telling us "K is for Kasey", "S is for Sam." Then he started to name the different letters in his name and finally, this weekend put them all together. At first he was really proud of himself and thought it was so cool (probably more because of the reaction he got from us more than anything!) but now his attitude is more like "whatever, sure i can spell my name, who can't?!"

Madeleine's "no rest for the weary" phase seems to be coming to an end. After a brutal week of few naps and lots of nighttime wake ups, she seems to have figured out that she doesn't HAVE to roll over and talk. We even got a fabulous 8-6:30 stretch the other night! Of course I didn't sleep because I was so freaked out that she hadn't woken up. So I complain when Madeleine wakes up that I'm not getting enough sleep and then when I have the chance for more sleep it doesn't come.

Mum comes on Thursday so guest room sheets are in the washing machine and we're ready for round four in four weeks! See you Thursday, Grandma.

I Don't Need a Dentist

First visit to the dentist this morning for Conor. I took him to see me get my teeth cleaned and just sit in the chair and get used to the office before he gets a cleaning. The last few days we've been getting him all psyched up for it. Andy's been talking about the superhero dentist who fights cavities.

When we walked into the office, Conor was obviously a little nervous and decided to take the proactive approach. He looked at the hygienist and said: "I won't get in the chair. I don't need a dentist. I brush my teeth every day and don't have cavities."

Cheeky

My dad arrived this week for a visit and went to pick Conor up from school. When they were in the car coming home, Conor kept staring at him.
Pop-Pop: Conor, why are you looking at me so intently?
Conor: I want your cheeks to be smaller.

Dad's joining me on my squishy belly diet.

UPDATE to Roll Over, Roll Over

Jennie managed to capture this video of Madeleine while I was at work today. BTW, it's almost 9pm and the rolly polly is upstairs lying on her back wide awake just chatting up a storm.

On a totally separate note, my dad is visiting. Of course, every time Madeleine even makes a peep he's saying: let me go get her. He babysat last night and when I called to check in at 9:30 he told me Madeleine was wide awake sitting on his lap. Sucker. :)

Roll Over, Roll Over

This week Madeleine starting rolling over and she thinks it's about the coolest thing ever...in fact, it's so cool it's keeping her up at night. Last night she laid in bed for two hours "talking to herself." Every time I put her down on her belly to go to sleep (the only way she'll sleep) within five seconds, she'd scoot her little butt up and roll over. Then being totally impressed with herself, tell the world all about it through coos and babbles and even some strange deep grunts.

Fall Is Here

Fall is definitely here (for now I'm going to forget that fall proceeds winter and that this beautiful crisp air will soon turn to holy crap it's cold air!) and this weekend we headed a little north to a family farm to pick out a pumpkin and go for a hay ride. Conor had a great time with country life-- feeding the animals, exploring the corn fields, eating apples. Apparently he also learned a thing or two ... when we got home that night I found him trying to milk Sadie... she wasn't pleased.


Mary left on Monday and we already miss her. She had a great visit with the kids. One of the best things she did was go to Conor's school to read the kids a story and have lunch. It was great that she got to see Conor and all the mystery of his school day since whenever we ask him what he did all we get is: nothing. And when you ask what was your favorite thing about school today he responds: all of it. I guess it's better than getting a response of "none of it" but either way I'm not getting much info. I want him to give me a laundry list of activities and tell me every detail of what he learned that day. It would also be cute if he wore a little uniform with a tie... ok, dreaming now. :) Anyway, great visit with Mary and she was so incredibly helpful. THANK YOU NONNA.
Tomorrow Pop-Pop arrives from Ottawa. Now, he's the real "story from your mouth" guy. I told him that he could follow in mary's footsteps and make an appearance at school, but that all stories needed to stay G-rated. I don't think all parents would be ok with some random grandpa coming in and telling their kids stories about the garumpf--aka the monster that eats the bubbles from the farts in the bathtub--like Jeremy and I used to hear.

Teeth Time

Madeleine's top two teeth seem to have broken through! Like Conor, she's getting teeth pretty early. Also means that what I thought was a lingering cold was probably teething.

Definitely Diet Time!

Yesterday at about 6:30 AM Conor woke up and crawled into bed with us. He sat on my lap, pulled up my pyjama top and put his hands flat on my belly.
Conor: Mummy, does your belly hurt?
Me: No, why do you say that?
Conor: Because it's all squishy
(cringe...could it get worse...um, yes, it could...)
Conor: Is your belly big because you're having another baby?

Sweet.

Notice no photo accompanies this post.

Boys vs. Girls

I'm one of those parents who prides herself on trying to raise kids in a kind of gender neutral way. I mean, I'm far from perfect...conor has a blue room full of trucks and madeleine has the most gorgeous new pink and red roman shade (just put it up and love it!) but I feel like I'm pretty good at sending a message that males and females are equal... So it's been much to my surprise that Conor has suddenly started defining gender roles. Last week, he was pushing his tricycle around the lawn and told me that he was mowing the lawn and that I couldn't help because it's a job for Daddies and Conors only. I'm finding that he's defining all these tasks into boy tasks and girl tasks or types of play. For example, he told me that only boys are allowed to rough house. No idea where he learned the term rough house or who told him it's only for boys, but he's decided that it's unacceptable for girls to play like boys. It's actually pretty funny how is little mind is working and trying to categorize things.

Sick and Still Sweet

You can barely see this picture (click on it to see if it's any better larger), but I couldn't help but take it. As I mentioned, both kids were sick last week. For three nights Madeleine slept in our bed in this little co-sleeper that kept her head elevated (thanks Virginie!). Between little coughs and sneezes, Madeleine would just look over at me and burst into smiles and laughs. Even sick, this little girl is so so sweet!

Swimming Lessons

Last Saturday Conor started swimming lessons at the YMCA. These SailFish lessons are in exactly the same pool that Andy learned to swim in. C has taken to the water pretty well. Truth be told, he's not Mr. Athletic (yet..Pop-Pop has hopes we'll have another Stevie Nash on our hands...)and he has a little bit of the reservation/fear of new things that I have so we weren't expecting him to be doing back flips off the edge the first day! But, he's really enjoying being in the pool and hasn't freaked out once--which according to Carrie's experience with Paige and Grant is pretty good! Next weekend Andy is traveling so I'll be taking C. Oh god, the thought of being in a bathing suit.

Worst Blogger Ever

So I've been a serious slacker on the blog lately. Honestly, work is really getting in the way of life! And on top of that, the kids were sick for the last two weeks. Oh yeah, and for some reason I thought it would be a great idea to have a garage sale (total failure) and redo the basement (will share pics shortly!). Thank goodness Andy's mom has been in town for the last two weeks. She was an amazing help as Andy was traveling and we were dealing with major runny noses and coughs.
Last Sunday night I just burst into tears and after 15 minutes Andy was saying: just quit, just quit... After calming down, I came to my senses, and realized that I wasn't going to walk into HR in the morning and give my notice. I think the constant tired is finally wearing on me. Sleep is short (my god when will this kid sleep through the night?!?) which makes patience shorter ...the commute back and forth to work is really the only thing that seems long! I am constantly wishing that I had more time in the day or less to do in the 24 hours I do have! Scary, but I'm starting to feel like one of those cliche target profiles that we talk about in planning meetings: Meet Brenda, a busy mother of two. Constantly multi minding, we're going to connect with Brenda by meeting her need to feel less guilty... Ugh.

Anyway, that's the reason for my infrequent posts. Hopefully I'll pull it together enough to at least post every week! Stay tuned... To make up for the last few weeks, I'm going to do a few quick posts to update everything.