Go Outside and Play!

I love days when its not raining because it enables me to say to the kids, "Go outside and play!" This morning, we said just that to them. Eleanor and Hayes were both running around the house like crazy people and had way too much energy for an early Saturday morning. Out they went, and they were quite happy about it. They got their jackets and shoes on and Eleanor even wore her backpack (for a reason I have yet to determine). I can watch them from our room and I saw them both driving or pushing their wheels through the grass chasing Baxter. As I sit here typing this, I can hear the wheels on the driveway and the kids chatting and yelling. Eleanor is the first to admit that she likes to go outside and SCREAM and boy, she does a good job of that! They especially like to ride their cars down and around the driveway to the garage. They go full-speed ahead. I do worry that they will have a hard crash at some point but that's all part of it, isn't it?!

Ben's Schedule at 6.5 Months

As I think I mentioned in a prior post, Thomas and I went to Nashville for a weekend earlier this month for some SunTrust events. We left the kids with their Grandmommy and Granddaddy. I typed up Ben's schedule so that G & G could manage Ben. Here is what I wrote for the record books:

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Each day –

Between 7:15 – 7:45 – Wakes up.

Breakfast – I usually make him a bottle with 7 oz in the morning. (2 scoops of the Lipil formula and 1 ½ of the Similac). I feed him a little more than half of bottle first and then about half of one of the baby food containers. I generally heat the baby food up in a microwaveable bowl for about 5 seconds in my microwave, especially if the food is coming out of the fridge. I finish up with what is left in the bottle, if he will take it.

Tips:

1. I don’t think that he likes the peas by themselves. When you feed him the peas, mix them up with the sweet potatoes and then I think he’ll eat them. If not, just feed him sweet potatoes every time.
2. I generally put him down for a nap 1.5 – 2 hours after I started feeding him that shift. So, for example, if he wakes up from his morning nap around 11:15 and I start feeding him around 11:30 or a few minutes before, I’ll put him down around 1 -1:15.
3. He does not like sitting in his high chair for long. He’ll also get tired of the exersaucer. I find that he likes sitting on the floor with toys in front of him. He keeps himself pretty occupied and likes to be left alone, as long as someone is in the room with him.
4. Ben’s medicine makes his poop RED. It looks like blood. Just a warning!
5. Ben only needs his small, brown dog blanket (packed) with him in bed when he sleeps. Nothing else.
6. Feel free to mix some cereal in with his food as you desire.

Morning Nap – Put him down between 9:15 and 9:45am. He’ll sleep anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hrs. I change his diaper before I put him down. I turn on his noisemaker to the ocean and then leave. He’ll probably cry when you put him down but just let him cry it out. If you hear him cry out after about 45 minutes, you can go in and try to console him and then put him back in his crib. Sometimes he’ll go back to sleep while other times he will not.

Lunch – 11:00 or later if he’s still sleeping. If he’s still napping, wait until he wakes up but have him up by 11:30. I give him a 7 oz of bottle and then another half jar of baby food – your choice.

Ear infection medicine – 3 ML one time a day. I give it to him after he eats lunch.

Mid-day Nap – between 12:30 and 1:00. Same routine as in the morning. He needs to go down for a nap at a time that will give him at least an hour nap before he eats again the next shift. He should not be up past 1:15 this shift.

Afternoon Bottle – between 2:30 -3:00. I give him 8 oz of formula (3 scoops Lipil and 1 scoop Similac)

Dinner – 5:30. I make him a 7 oz bottle and feed him another half of a baby food container.

If he does not nap well during the day, I put him down for a cat nap around 6:30 so that we can eat dinner in peace. Tonight, I kept him up and sat him on the floor in the kitchen and upstairs in the playroom while I cooked dinner and got the kids to bed. He was content surprisingly.

Late Bottle - 7:15 – 7:30 I make an 8oz bottle and he usually drinks most of it.

Bedtime – Right after he’s done with his late bottle. We put him in his yellow sleeper for nighttime.

Ben is 7 Months!

Well, he's actually 7 months and one week. I did not get my act together last week to do this post. What is new with Ben? Well, right now the poor guy has a pretty bad cold. He looks and feels miserable. I have him sleeping in Eleanor's room in the pack-n-play with the humidifier working. (We put him in her room because its warmer and smaller, and therefore, the humidifier is more effective.) He is really starting to move around a lot and will actually "crawl" forward one or two strides before crashing down to his belly. He has not figured out how to go from the crawl/rocking position to a sitting one and I think that gets him frustrated. He's gradually making his way through the different baby food varieties but still seems to struggle a bit with the whole spoon concept. He sticks his tongue out a lot while eating and almost pushes the spoon away. He is most content sitting on a floor with toys all around him. He can play like this for long periods of time. In his dream world, Mom would hold him all day long, but that definitely is not his reality! He gets so excited when he sees his bottle (bounces up and down and starts talking) and when he sees his baby food (starts licking his lips). His massive drooling has returned so I'm waiting for one of his top front teeth to pop out. He has moved out of the infant car seat into a backwards facing "normal" car seat. He still sleeps great at night. He LOVES watching Hayes's GeoTrax go around its track. Also, he gets a big grin every time he sees Baxter and cracks up when Baxter licks his hands or face (eww!). Overall, we love having him around and hope we beat this cold soon!

The Adventure That Is Baby Food

Ben has been eating traditional baby food for the last month, and the jury is still out as to whether or not he likes it. He definitely enjoys sweet potatoes, carrots, squash and pears. He does not seem to like peas, green beans, or bananas. My goal/hope is to eventually make him his food rather than buy him the ready-made baby food. I ventured out to Whole Foods this week and bought some sweet potatoes, pears and butternut squash with the intention of stocking my freezer with pureed foods. Since the Whole Foods visit, I've been researching recipes online for inspiration. (Here's a picture of Ben after he's seen his bottle, which he LOVES!)Last night, I learned that we could give Ben canned pumpkin mixed with some water to make it the desired consistency. I thought this was an awesome idea since we have CANS of pumpkin in our pantry for that rainy day when we would need it(!). I pulled it out and got it ready for Ben to taste, so proud of myself because we were actually trying something new with this third child. Little did I know that Ben would gag, choke and eventually throw most of it up after we fed it to him! I'm hoping that its because he has a cold and a lot of congestion in his throat, but Thomas was not convinced that he liked it one bit. I will try it again but decided to use the remaining pumpkin in the can to make chocolate chip pumpkin bread. Now, that was tasty!

Who Do You Root For?

Who are the kids' favorite college teams? Need I say more?

Eleanor's Outfit Selection

Usually, on the weekends, I let the kids choose their outfits. (During the week, I have veto power when the kids are going to school.) They come up with some real doozies. Here is Eleanor's selection for yesterday that she changed into after Sunday School. She then went to lunch at Piccadilly in this outfit!I especially like the added touch of the lace collared white blouse underneath her Carolina t-shirt. The pink and white striped belt complete the overall look. :-)

Letter to Mom

Eleanor has started to express her feelings through her writing. Sometimes, after I've sent her up to her room because she's gotten into trouble, she comes back downstairs carrying a letter to me. Even though I'm disappointed in her at that time, these letters always make me smile. Here is an example of one she has written me in orange marker on notebook paper. Notice how at the end, she strays from her message and starts to tell the time! (with no spelling corrections :-))

"I was not Lisning To my Mommy.
1. I am soraey theat I did that mamy.
2. i no bitr then thae.
3. I no i shwud Lisn to wut may momy sied.
4. I no wut time it is 4:47 thin it weil coum PM 4:48 then PM 4:49 then 4:30 then 4:31"

Why No Birthday Party?

Poor Hayes. Both yesterday and today are the official birthdays of two of his grandparents (Mimi and Granddaddy). He believes that everyone has a party on their birthdays. Why not, right? All of his friends have them, he had one, Eleanor had one, even his MOM had one . . . so why shouldn't everyone? Well, yesterday he asked me where Mimi was having her party and when were we going to it. I kind of brushed the question aside because I don't have a very good answer for it. How does, "When you get older, you don't have parties," sound? Not very exciting to an impressionable three-year-old. This morning, he asked me the same thing about Granddaddy's party - where was it and could we go? Maybe he'll be one of those people who always wants to truly celebrate his birthday with a party. More power to him if he can pull it off. Why not celebrate the fact that you are one year older and wiser? Sounds like a great plan to me!

Sweet Eleanor

As I think I have mentioned in a previous post, Eleanor's class writes every day. Ms. Howell gives them the beginning of a sentence, and they have to finish it. Yesterday, they started off with, "If I had $100 I would . . . ". I was so proud of what Eleanor came up with to complete her sentence. Here is what she wrote:

"If I had $100 I would give it to the poor. I would buy toys for the poor. I would buy candy for the poor."

"Ben's" Bad Golf Game

Yesterday afternoon, I let Hayes play the wii while Eleanor was at school. It was fun to watch him "practice" without his sister offering her comments. He tried three of the four sports on the wii Sports game - baseball, golf, bowling - but shied away from the boxing. With the wii, you can chose who you play as; for example, the kids have made players for Mom, Dad, Winnie the Pooh, Batman, their cousins and all other family members. Hayes often likes to play as Garfield, the famous cartoon cat. At one point yesterday, he asked me to change his player to "Ben", as in his little brother. I quickly accommodated his request, and he was soon playing golf as "Ben". Shortly thereafter, I heard him cracking himself up. "Ben" kept hitting the ball into the water and sand traps. I saw Hayes INTENTIONALLY aiming for these hazards so that "Ben" would get a bad score. He would literally turn sideways and try to hit the ball as far away from the hole as possible. He thought it was hilarious, and I must admit that I found it quite funny/clever myself!

It's a New Day!

Yesterday was so momentous! I spent most of the day watching all of the inauguration coverage. Hayes and Ben were both home with me. Thomas even came home at lunch to see Obama take the oath of office and to hear his speech. After struggling trying to get Hayes to witness the events with us, we finally did get Hayes to watch Obama take his oath by bribing him with M&Ms. Dora was on in the other room so Obama had tough competition! Ben listened to the oath and most of the speech in his dad's arms. I tried taking a photo for the record books, but my camera's batteries were dead. :-( Eleanor said that they watched the oath and speech at school. Her takeaways from the day were that (1) the White House had a bowling alley AND a movie theater and (2) the Obama girls were going to watch Bolt and HSM 3 last night while their parents went to all of the balls.

Later in the afternoon, Hayes asked me when Obama was coming to our house. I had to explain to him that Obama would probably not ever make it to our house because he has SOOO much to do in Washington DC.

Good luck, Obama with all of the issues that need to be addressed! We are all rooting for you!

Weekend Without Mom

This past weekend, I was able to escape to Chapel Hill to catch up with 10 of my girlfriends from college. It was the first time we had all been back together since 1997 - 12 years! Thomas was in charge of the kids and I knew they would be well taken care of. He sent me two pictures over the weekend from his cell phone (the quality is not great).

Here Eleanor and Hayes are under a big T-Rex skeleton at Fernbank on Saturday.
Thomas had to go to church Sunday morning so here are all three, dressed and ready for church! My friends were VERY impressed when I showed them this picture at breakfast.
I know they had a great weekend and I appreciate them letting me get-away!

The Mitten

Last week, everyone in Eleanor's class at school wrote an individual story about a mitten. They spent three days in class writing it. Each day she would come home and update me on what else she had written that day. Eleanor was so proud. The finished product came home with her this week. The book consists of everyone in her class's Mitten story.

Here is Eleanor's finished product entitled The Mitten:

Once there was a little girl named Eleanor. She lived in Canada. She had red mittens. She lost her mitten in the snow. A little pink bear walked slowly into the mitten. A brown snake slithered into the mitten. A tan fat cat ran fast into the mitten. A white tiny rat dove into the mitten. A green turtle climbed into the mitten. Suddenly the bear growled and they got out of the mitten. The animals went back into the forest. The mitten got big. Eleanor was happy. Because she found her mitten.

TV Marketing Works on Toddlers!

Hayes, who is watching Nickelodeon while I make his lunch, just yelled in to me,"Mom, I have to catch the new Backyardigans at 9!" First of all, we don't say "catch" around here and I've never heard Hayes utter that word in this context. Second of all, I had to think-twice about the 9:00 time, finally determining that it was 9am vs. 9pm. I guess I should be happy that they aren't asking him to stay up past his bedtime.

We've known all along that TV's targeting/brainwashing youngsters works and my Hayes is a great example of its effectiveness!

The Presidents Song

This year in Eleanor's kindergarten class, the kids have become very interested in the presidents, largely due to the election. The kindergartners have tried to memorize the presidents from Washington to Bush. Some of the kids in the class can name them all. Eleanor can say them when the mood strikes her. It is pretty amazing! I told Eleanor and Hayes how I had to learn the names as part of a song for a school play in elementary school. I thought it would be easy for both of them to remember the names if they could do it through a song. Here is what I found when I Googled "Presidents Song."

During the late fall, when Thomas was traveling, the kids would always play this song while we were eating dinner. It has a catchy tune and a tune that when looking for it, you will find in a lot of other child toys. Well, both Hayes and Eleanor (and Mom) can sing the song and name all of the presidents now. They even sang the song to E's class when we went in for her birthday. When we get a working video camera (!), I'll have to film them.

Ms. Howell, Eleanor's teacher, gave each of the students a president placement for Christmas. It has a picture of each of the past presidents in order with their names and time served. When Eleanor is at school, Hayes likes to use it as his place mat. This 3-times-a-day reminder at meals gets him to jump into song. He does not even know how to say some of the names, (for example, for Hoover he says Hooper) but he's pretty close.

Matchbox Football

The other day, I went upstairs to find Hayes was playing "football" with his Matchbox cars. He was playing the game on the sofa on which he likes to drive his cars and trucks. (Usually, while watching TV, he'll pull out his modes of transportation and drive them all over the sofa.) He literally had his cars divided into teams and had them playing against each other. Next game time, I'll take a picture to share.

Hayes LOVES the Yellow Jackets!

For Christmas, Hayes got a Georgia Tech football uniform, complete with what looks like an official helmet. He really did not want to take it off all day. The boys and Eleanor played football at Grandmommy and Granddaddy's house before Christmas dinner and Hayes was the only one playing with a helmet (and he had some shoulder pads on as well!) He also got a Buzz stuffed animal that plays the GT fight song. Hayes loves to torture me by "playing" Buzz over and over and yelling, instead of singing, the song. (Yes, he knows all of the words.) If he sees a picture of a Yellow Jackets athlete in the Sports section of the AJC, he immediately grabs it and takes it all apart so that he can look closely at the picture while he sits on the floor. He also wants to wear his Georgia Tech yellow jacket t-shirts every day (he has 3), but luckily, he is open to varying it up a little bit.

With college football over and the Falcons out of the NFL playoffs, it will be interesting to see if Hayes's football passion transfers to basketball season. Right now, he seems so obsessed with football that I cannot imagine him having the same intense interest in basketball.

E's Birthday at School

Yesterday, Hayes, Ben and I visited E's kindergarten class to help them celebrate E's birthday. Eleanor had requested that we bring rice krispie treats with M&Ms in them (easier said than done BTW!). When we arrived around 12:45, the class was playing a card game in groups. A few minutes later, it was time for the birthday snack. First, Ms. Howell called Eleanor to the front of the room where she stood on a chair. She then talked about the tradition in the class - the parents tell the class something that they remember about their child's birth. . . . So, for Eleanor I said that she was born on NYE, that it was a very cold day, and that she was born at Piedmont Hospital. Ms. Howell then asked if we knew her gender before her birth, and I told the class that we knew that we'd be having a little girl. The class then sang "Happy Birthday" to Eleanor. The final tradition was for E's classmates to raise their hands if they had anything nice that they wanted to share about Eleanor. Well, nearly everyone in the class raised their hand. The first girl said, "She's my best friend." The next girl said, "She's my best friend." Then, the first boy said, "She's my best friend." And the trend continued . . . It was pretty cute! One girl tried to vary it up and said, "She's pretty." Another boy said, "She's nice." E has quite a few clowns in her class. One of them said, "I want to marry her in an apple." That got a big laugh from everyone. Another boy, Wright, said, "She's my girlfriend." The kids cracked up at that too, though they all nodded in agreement because Wright really does want to be E's boyfriend. Eleanor then got a birthday crown that she wore the rest of the day. Finally, we passed out the rice krispie treats and some extra M&Ms for all to enjoy. Hayes was thrilled because he got to sit next to Eleanor AND have a rice krispie treat and some M&Ms. Mrs. Howell took our family picture so I'm hoping to get that from her so that I can post it. It ended up being much more of a celebration than I'd thought and I'm glad I brought the boys with me.

Santa In Our Mind

Though Christmas is at least two weeks past, Hayes keeps finding candy that he meant to leave for Santa. The first was a chocolate Santa someone gave him at school. The day he brought it home, he said to me, "Mom, I'm going to give this to Santa." I told him how he could leave it for Santa on Christmas Eve, and he was pretty excited about the idea. A few days before Christmas, Hayes got a red/white/green twirl long lollipop. Like the chocolate Santa, he had every intention of giving this to Santa as well. (I don't really know where this idea of his came from. I do know that I told him each day that he could only have 1 sweet so maybe he had hit is 1 limit and did not know what to do with the extra candy.) Well, come Christmas Eve, neither piece of candy was in an obvious place for us to remember to put it out. Christmas came and went. A few days after Christmas, Hayes gasps, "Oh no, Mom!" I thought something terrible had happened. I turned to him and he was holding the chocolate Santa. "You forgot to leave this for Santa!" he said. I corrected him when I said, "No Hayes, YOU forgot to leave it for Santa." He was crestfallen but quickly recovered. "We can leave it for him next Christmas!" (The candy has since made its way into the trash can, unbeknownst to Hayes.) Yesterday, Hayes was going through the kitchen utensil drawer (he likes to look at the cookie cutters) and found the lollipop. "Mom, look what I found! We were supposed to give this to Santa Claus." I quickly told him that we could save that candy, too, for next year. Right now, the lollipop is sitting on our kitchen counter but I KNOW it will not stay there for another 350+ days. We'll have to see if it makes it to Christmas '09!

Ben at Six Months

1. Ben's second tooth arrived right around the New Year's. It took me a day or two to notice, but now Ben has his first two bottom front teeth. Of course, right after they both popped out, he took a nose dive in the bathroom and the teeth busted his upper lip!
2. We've started baby food for him. He has not learned that he shouldn't try to talk while eating - this morning, he blabbered while I fed him some squash and it flew up all over his face and hair! He does not seem to like green peas, but I'll have to wait a bit for a final assessment.
3. He laughs when you blow on his face.
4. He seems to prefer the pack-n-play over the crib so we have him sleeping in there in his room for the time being.
5. He can sit up on his own.
6. He gets on all fours and rocks back and forth A LOT.
7. He sleeps with his dog lovie and nothing else.
8. He still goes in his exersaucer and jumps up and down but he won't stay in there as long as he used to.9. He does not like to sit in his high chair unless he's getting fed. That is the only time he will tolerate being there.
10. He enjoys sitting on the floor and playing. He's quite content doing that and could sit in one place forever.

The Tasty Varsity

Today we decided to take the kids to the Varsity for lunch. Let me just say that we did not leave home with the plans to go there . . . The Varsity is not really a place that you first think of when you contemplate eating out for a meal. We were out and about over in Brookhaven, and everyone was starving. We debated eating out over there, but the kids decided that they would rather come home and eat PB&J than eat fast food (crazy, I know!). While driving down I-85 heading home, the Varsity came to mind. I cannot explain it, other than that I must have been in the mood for a hamburger! The family seemed taken with the idea since it was a fresh idea. Eleanor had only been to the Varsity once before, and it was not even with us but Grandmommy and Granddaddy. This visit would be Hayes's and Ben's first times . . . and I must admit that it was only my second visit in 12 years!

Who would have thought that it would have been jam-packed on a random Saturday afternoon?! There was hardly a place to park and nowhere to sit inside. The lines were very long as well. Once we got there and saw the crowd, I was not happy with my suggestion, but the kids were psyched to get a hot dog and fries so I had to persevere. After the order taker yelled, "What'll you have?" to Eleanor, she excitedly responded with, "a naked dog and fries". E & H both got dogs and fries while Thomas and I went the burger/onion ring route. The only seats we could find were in the ESPN TV room where the seats are individual, almost like the desks we used to sit in at school. Once the food started to fill our hungry tummies, Hayes turned around to me and Thomas in the row behind him and declared, "This is tasty!"

With that vote of approval, we decided that we would have to return soon and all agreed that we would try the curb-side service next time. Until then . . .

Singing Himself to Sleep

Just for the record . . . After I put Hayes to bed tonight, I could hear him singing, "Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas" over and over at the top of his lungs. Eleanor was sleeping soundly through it all in the other twin bed in his room.

Dress-Up

I keep thinking that Eleanor has grown out of the dress-up phase, but she constantly proves me wrong. Almost daily, one can find her prancing around the house in some fairy/princess/cheerleader costume. On school days, she generally walks right in the door, up the stairs to her room and dons a costume. She often cannot just wear one but has to go through numerous costume changes. This afternoon, for example, she's only gone through two outfits (first a pink fairy and now a pink Barbie dress), but all of her costumes have been pulled out of her costume drawer so I fully anticipate another change before bedtime. E in her pink, Barbie costume.

Hayes's Turn to Read

Tonight, I read to both kids but because it was late, we only read one book. Eleanor wanted to read the selected book (a Berenstain Bears book) so I let her. She went through the book very well. It was one of those that repeated what was said on the prior page and then just added a new line. When E finished the story, Hayes said, "My turn!" I thought he was just going to look at the pages and flip through the book, but no, he wanted to actually "read" it. He told Eleanor, "You first and then me. " . . . so Eleanor would read a line and Hayes would then repeat it. Towards the end of the story where things were getting VERY repetitive, she thought that she did not need to say, "Out the window, under the bridge, over the stream, through the woods" and on and on on each page but just the new words. She tried to trick him and just read the new line to him - "Up Spooky Hill." The problem is that you can't pull a fast one on Hayes. He said, "Eleanor, that's not it. There are a lot of words here." She, then, had to read all of the words and he repeated it all after her.