growing boys

K is officially pushing up on all fours! i never thought it would happen this soon! his docs and pt's have been telling us to work on it, but (shh don't tell) we haven't really been. he's just been spending a lot of time on his belly, practicing on his own, and scooting all around the floor (by rolling and turning). it's so exciting. i'm not sure why. other than it is like he is becoming more and more of a little person, rather than a blob. despite his yucky cold, he has been very happy the past couple of days-- trying to talk and actually getting some real noises out! that is exciting too, as he is really connecting with us instead of just listening to our voices and randomly kooing in raspiness. it is really helping me to begin to bond with him. it's been a long time of waiting for that feeling to really take root. thank God for giving this child such a sweet and happy disposition. it is an added blessing. . . on top of so many others!
tonight is c's first night in his toddler bed (converted from his crib). he and dave took the side off of the crib this morning before nap, and though his nap was shorter than usual, he really didn't have any trouble falling asleep with just the guard rail thingy. tonight as i put him to bed, for the first time since he was an infant i was able to reach down close and stroke his hair and kiss his face. i told him how much i loved this and he looked up at me and said, "should you come in here with me?" 'should you' is the phrase he uses ALL the time. it is so cute. "should you hold me?" he always asks. "should we go outside now?" "should we have some ice cream?"--always with a little lilt in his voice at the end of the sentence. i debated trying to crawl in with him, but didn't. i'm sure in about 16 years i'll wish i had... part of me already does... but i wasn't sure if the bed would hold me. that'd be a bad way to start out the big boy bed process-- crashing to the floor. i also didn't want him to start what could quickly become a habit. his bedtime routine is so streamlined-- brush teeth, binky, light out. done. perhaps when he graduates to an actual twin bed. . . less chance of crashing to the floor.
ahh little milestones -- my boys are growing up.
maybe i'll just go in and stare at them while they sleep.
for good measure.

10 months

Kyren turned the big 1.0. yesterday. Hard to believe that's his actual age... and that in just 2 months it will have been an entire year since that fate-FILLED day.
Since he's really about 6 months and change, we're just starting with some fun milestones. he's rolling all over the place, and getting closer and closer to pushing up on his knees. he's started eating cereal and baby food with great gusto and consequently sleeping through the night again. LOVE that this happened like magic. his big brother didn't sleep through the night til 10 or 11 months too, but that was 10 or 11 ACTUAL months. so this feels like a gift! at first,with the food, each bite was accompanied by a thumb sucking chaser. i guess he liked the way it felt, or tasted, or both. it was cute, but entirely inconvenient for trying to get the next bite in the mouth. after a week or 2 he's finally gotten the hang of opening the pie hole for each spoonful that comes that direction. much easier!
he had his 6 month evaluation/follow-up with the awesome specialist(s) from CHOP that we saw at 3 months. and once again i couldn't have been more pleased with the care and expertise we were shown. they say he's still lagging a bit in his fine and gross motor skills, and we will now add some OT in along with the PT we've been doing. but i'm not concerned. i'm so proud of him for how far he's come in just the last couple of months. the only thing i am ratherconcerned about is his (lack of) voice. we are going to make an appt. with an ENT in the same CHOP program/building to get his vocal chords checked out asap. they should be getting stronger by now, and yet most of the time his "coos" are no more than a raspy "ahhhhh." his cry is nice and loud when he's mad, which i suppose is a good thing. but other than that, vocalizing is not his forte.
for someone who's been through so much in his short life, he's reallya sweet, laid back kinda guy. he laughs easily and is quite entertained by his brother, and anyone else who walks in the room and glances his direction. he often wakes up smiling, and wiggles his whole body with glee when you walk in the room. lately he seems to be teething-- obsessing about chewing on anything he can reach and pull to his mouth. just no sign of tooth buds yet. and this week he has his 2nd cold. we think C caught it from the library last week and shared it with K. so generous. praying it doesn't go to his chest once again. one week on the nebulizer was enough! i am so thankful that we have had so little to deal with as far as his lungs. he really is our little miracle!! this past sunday we dedicated himto the Lord before our church family. it was definitely a celebration for us-- we already knew that our little "beloved of the Lord" is fully HIS, but declaring it publicly made it that much more special. so many people sitting there had prayed for him and for us during those first few months. and to have the answers to those prayers in the flesh before their eyes was a testimony and reminder of God's mercy and kindness.
will post a few pics soon...right now i must get some of that precious sleep!

1,2,3... a big fat hen!

i need to start keeping better track of little mr. quotable and his quite charming version of everything he has seen or heard. like the above title-- which he said out of the blue this morning at the breakfast table. we haven't said that rhyme in a while (obviously), but somehow that is what popped into his little mind.

yesterday we were sitting together on the big comfy chair, and he pointed to my chin and said, "you have a beard." i laughed and said, "no i don't." he looked again, carefully, and pointed again in all seriousness, and said matter of factly, "you have a little bit." it was the cutest little voice, and the most innocent "just tryin to help ya out" expression. guess that one random hair (c'mon i know i'm not the only one!) was in need of a little tweeze. i couldn't stop laughing.

and he's taken to nicknaming just about everyone and thing in his little world. this week dave has become (consistently, affectionately) "Dadskoode". we have no idea why, other than he's become more aware of how you can play around with sounds and language. he calls his hippo "hiptoe". and i am on and off "momsy" or "moms".

we've been going to the library this month for story time on wed mornings -- and the first day we were there, we found the book "No, no. Yes, yes." -- one in a series that we don't have at home. (we have "Big. Little.", "Quiet. Loud.", and "Yummy. Yucky.") Unfortunately "No, no. Yes, yes." has an idea on every page of what NOT to do (ie, unravel the toilet paper roll), and in my opinion is the worst book ever written for preschoolers. We didn't check the book out of the library (thank God), we just sat there that day (several weeks ago) and read it once through, very quickly... i even skipped a couple of the pages that would have planted some really unnecessary ideas in his head. Today he looked at Kyren and said (i guess to himself), "Don't hit your brother with a hammer." it took me a moment to realize he was quoting the book. at least he could verbalize it rather than acting it out. ahhh... 2.

Hiptoe

Mr. Cool

froggy bottom boy

this was one of my favorite outfits from last time around.

it's fun to have another little bum to put in it...

and to watch our little guy get bigger and stronger as the days go by!

pizza cutter

i've been attempting to find the ideal homeade pizza dough for a long time. last night's turned out pretty good. we're thin crusters at our house, but a little body in the dough was nice for a change. christian has been requesting tortillas with cheese everyday for breakfast and often dinner-- mostly because he likes to [pretend to] cut it with the pizza cutter. as a result i figured real pizza would be a hit. i was right. all would have gone perfectly had i not allowed him to take a bite when it was still too hot. poor kiddo. so excited and then, suddenly, burn victim. fortunately it was not too serious and after a little ice cube on the tongue, he was ready to try again. i think he would have eaten the whole thing, had he not just finished his cheesey tortilla :).


i love the way it looks, fresh out of the oven!

his new favorite tool.

a little help...

the new air supply

dave just brought home an air compressor... and you'd think it was Christmas morning. he walked in the livingroom with a box under his arm and Christian asked what it was with great excitement and inquistivity (a new word that describes 2 yr olds to a tee). when dave told him, C responded with almost a manic level of enthusiasm. he ran over to me and said, "MOM!! Daddy has an AIR COMPRESSOR!!!!!" a moment later he had a fabulous idea- "we can blow up balloons!"

i have no idea how he knew we could do such a thing with an air compressor, but we are now sitting in the livingroom with our bag of balloons (that we've been blowing up the old fashioned way all week, and then letting them go and watching them, gleefully, as they fly across the room). good thing we have the air compressor now. my lungs were getting really tired.

what i love most about this scene? in the midst of his joy and rapture, C keeps running back to me and climbing up on my lap each time dave turns on the [LOUD] device. just a little mommy comfort in the midst of the man fest. it's cuter than i can describe. sigh... :)

evening snapshot

my heart is melting right now. i'm sitting in the big comfy chair in my livingroom, listening to my husband play the guitar and my creative two year old use his adorable imagination. he's pretending to come and go through the door leading to our basement. each time he shuts the door and yells, "bye! bye mom! have a good day dad! have a good day, mommy-mommy!" a moment later he knocks, throws open the door and announces, "i'm BACK! how was your day, mommy? how was your day daddy?"

when we reply with "good, how was YOUR day?", he says, "good. i went on a mystery trip."

"Oh! where did you go?"

"to see goats and ice cream!" (which i guess was one of the first mystery trips we ever went on-- to Highland Orchard, where they have both of those exciting things-- and every time we mention going on a mystery trip he says with great anticipation, "to see goats and ice cream???!!!")

as his drama unfolds, i ask him what kind of ice cream he got. he says "water ice ice cream!" (which we got on our last mystery trip to St. Peter's Village and Rita's Water Ice).

it's not just the play-acting. it's the genuine look of enjoyment on his face each time he bursts through the door and rushes over to my chair, wide-eyed and just as exuberant as the time before to tell me the EXACT same thing.

this time he notices that daddy has left the room and says, "i better go find him."

where does he get this stuff?

i love these long stretches of pure, innocent happiness. before dinner he was not in the greatest of moods. whining comes so naturally to us all. but he is using his 2 yr oldness to perfect it lately. but after dinner he went to the basement with daddy and came back up 20 minutes later singing and happy.

i guess that's the simplicity of 2. when you're happy, you're really really happy. and when you're not you're sooooo not.

fortunately those uber happy times are enough to melt my heart into oblivion, so that i keep loving him through the extremely unhappy times where all he seems to speak is "whine-eeze", as my parents used to call it when we were little.

God knew what He was doing when he created this whole parent/child relationship. i can't imagine my life without this little man. even when he's said "NO" for the 500th time in an hour (yes, it's possible), i would die a thousand deaths were he to be taken from me.

now that he's found daddy in the other room, and has played catch, tickle monster, and smush-a-lator, and sung the alphabet song at least 5 times, he is being encouraged to get ready for bed. As dave and i celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary yesterday, we reflected on how drastically our lives have changed since we were single. and how much more fulfilling it is to come home to one another and our boys at the end of each day. we LOVED being single, but we just can't imagine life any other way now. our joy is magnified by each other's joys... and now by our sons' joys. we marvel at how much has happened in such a short span of time to change us completely and forever. and while we couldn't wait to get away for a romantic dinner at a fancy restaurant and just be alone for a few hours, it was somehow just as sweet to come home and find that C was still awake, singing in his bed, waiting for a goodnight hug and kiss.

life is good.

and i believe, now, he's waiting for that goodnight hug and kiss once more...

buds

Toni brought Baby Isaac to visit Kyren today for the first time. Their due dates only 4 months apart, they're essentially the same age :). It was fun to finally see Kyren looking BIG next to someone. We are so used to him being the peanut. Our visit was brief, but long enough to get a photo shoot of our little guys together. Isaac is full of smiles and coos, and is very alert. I can't wait to watch him grow alongside of K. So fun to have little buddies with my friends!

6 month milestone

Kyren's been going to PT now for a couple of months (i think). it's hard to keep track of these weeks... they all keep running together. he's been rolling from front to back for a while now, but just didn't seem too interested in the reverse move. but tonight i saw him do it and exclaimed. dave said he'd seen him do it a few times today. um, apparently he didn't think it was quite as big an accomplishment as i do!! i was beginning to think he would never get it! maybe now he can begin sleeping through the night again, as a big part of his awake time at night is because he rolls over onto his back and then just lies there and stares at the darkness until he gets hungry and fusses for me to come get him. if only it were that easy, for it to change overnight. but a mom can dream right? especially a deliriously tired one. . .

it just so happens that 6 months ago today (or was it yesterday?) we brought him home from his 107 days in the NICU. i kind of think of that day as if it could have been his birth day, as he was finally the health and weight of a full term newborn. so i would like to make this milestone a bigger deal and say he rolled over on his 6 month developmental bday! good job, buddy! let the good times roll :)

it's been another long while...

hmm. let's see. blogging is not in the forefront of my mind these days. i am busy being busy and when i'm not, i only want to relax. somehow blogging requires more brain cells than it used to. or perhaps i don't have as many to spare as i used to.
christian is still saying some incredibly cute things that i tell myself to remember or at least think 'hey , i should write that down'. like when he stepped on the daddy longlegs, his first taking of life, and then knelt down next to it and said, 'i'm sorry for banging you with my shoe daddy longlegs.' i didn't have the heart to explain death right then and there... but i'm pretty sure the spider didn't hear him. i am torn with the whole killing bugs thing. i don't want him killing innocent creatures that cause no harm, but i don't want him fearing ones that do. why is it ok to kill bees and not ladybugs? the answer is obvious to me, but to a two year old, it's extremely complicated.
we took our first mother/son adventure and went to chicago to visit willa and wyatt last week. it was a blast, and totally worth the re-routed plane and head colds with which we arrived. it was so fun to spend time in their awesome new home and lovely sidewalked neighborhood. the first afternoon we went for a stroller ride around the block and C kept jumping off the stroller (it's a sit n stand) and standing in people's yards... feeling the grass and smiling. as if we lived in the city. he and willa played relatively well together for both being newly 2. she handled his extreme and unfounded possessiveness of all of her toys with great grace. i posted slideshows of the 5 million pictures that kelly took over the 4 days we were together. it was so nice to just sit and be moms together in the same room... at the same stage in life... with 4 kids who share the same blood. it's hard to believe we're in our 30's, raising kids. when did that happen?? oh yeah, all at once! they were beyond hospitable and we can't wait to do it again (minus the illnesses). so glad we get to see them again in a few weeks at the Lake!!
well, we've been back for 5 days now and the boys and i are still battling these lingering bugs. Kyren finally succumbed to his first chest cold, and is on a nebulizer, mostly as a precaution. he tolerates the treatments rather well, and we have discovered that Baby Einstein videos on YouTube work great for distraction. i feel guilty for taking him on an airplane, when we are supposed to be protecting him from germs. hopefully he won't have any serious trouble with his lungs. cuz then i'd definitely be feelin the mom guilt.
yesterday we celebrated the 4th of July with Dave's family and C was introduced to his first Slip'N'Slide. i'll try to post some video later. he LOVED it. we all tried to hide in the shade as it was the beginning of a week long heat wave, in the upper 90's.
right now dave is insanely walking out the door to go play tennis. i made sure he had his phone in case he drops dead. seriously. . . he is crazy.