A Big Sister's Perspective

I am enjoying Ree's perspective on pregnancy.  Her initial reaction to the pregnancy was relief.  We hadn't yet told her I was pregnant, and after my first ultrasound Jeff told her that we were having a baby.  Just one.  She didn't care at that point if it was a boy or a girl, as long as there was just one baby.  However, it wasn't long before she started telling everyone that she was having a little sister.  Uh-oh.

Thankfully last week we did find out (with about 90%) certainty, that we are having another girl.  It was a fairly early ultrasound, so the technician wasn't completely confident, but she and I were both in agreement that it definitely looked like a girl.  Ree was happy to hear that she really is (probably) getting a baby sister.  What Ree doesn't know yet is this means she will be sharing a room by this time next year.  We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

We've had some other enjoyable moments with Ree.  One day last week I was wearing a fairly tight tank top when I felt the baby move.  I looked down, and sure enough, my shirt was moving all over the place.  I pointed this out to Ree and she asked in awe, "Is the baby crawling?"  I said that yes, maybe she was practicing her crawling.

On Saturday afternoon, Ree and I were sitting under a blanket on the couch watching Jungle Book.  We must've been at a boring part, because she suddenly pulled up the blanket, stared at my stomach and said, "Make the baby crawl again!"  I tried to gently explain it doesn't work like that.  Babies don't do things on command.  Neither do kids, for that matter.  Or most grown ups.

The whole baby crawling thing has stayed with her.  One day this week she and Jeff were looking at photos and he came across this photo and ask who was in it.

Without missing a beat, she said it was Mommy and Michael.  She was not happy to be corrected and learn that she was actually the one sitting on my lap.  Jeff also explained that on her birthday when she turned 2, Leon and Michael were still in my belly.  Relieved for a reason to change subjects, she immediately asked, "Did they crawl too?" 

I have a feeling she will soon be asking strangers about the crawling habits of the babies in their bellies.  Those should be some interesting conversations.

My Name is Earl

For those who are curious, yes, Earl really should pretty much leave us alone unless it drastically changes course over the next few hours.  We live at the southern tip of North Carolina in the area that is currently blue on the National Hurricane Center map.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at2.shtml?5-daynl?large#contents

Right now the winds on shore are still calm, and the trees outside my building at work aren't moving any more than usual.  However, based on my headache, I think the pressure is dropping fairly rapidly.  (That or I am just tired, hungry, and cranky.)  The last I heard, we weren't even supposed to have horrible winds or much rain.  We shall see.

The closest beach to us is Wrightsville Beach.  It's a mile from the back of campus at UNCW and about 5 miles from our house.  I'm sure the surfers were disappointed when they woke up this morning.  When I checked the beach cam, waves were only waist high.  Here's the most recent surf report.

Thursday Surf Report:
8:20 am
Building hurricane surf today. Not that big early on. Waist-head high but inconsistent. That will change as the storm draws closer today. Increasing NE wind. Be safe. Earl Satellite

Wind:
NE-ENE 15-40+ mph
(next 6 hours)

If you get bored, keep checking the surf cam.  There should be plenty of surf action late this afternoon and into the evening.

p.s.  Based on the current hurricane/tropical storm names, does anyone else feel the need for a Disney movie and TV marathon???

Immunizations

I hate immunizations, vaccinations, shots, whatever you want to call them.  I don't like getting them and I hate watching my kids get them.  Not only is it not fun to get jabbed, there's something that just doesn't feel right about taking a perfectly healthy kid and loading them up with germs.

It doesn't help that now there is so much guilt.  You are a bad parent if you don't immunize - think of what would happen if your poor child actually got the disease.  But you are a bad parent if you do immunize - why increase your child's risk of autism and other side effects for diseases that have virtually been eradicated?  (The current official word is that there is no correlation between immunizations and autism, but that doesn't stop the guilt trip that comes from other parents...)

I know parents who cry every time they take their baby in for shots.  While I certainly understand where they are coming from, it never bothered me that much.  Maybe it's because everything makes them cry at that age.  Or, as another dad whose child lived in the NICU put it to me, once you've seen your child with an IV in his head, what's a little pinprick shot?  Or maybe I'm just insensitive.  I don't know.

Last week I took Ree to the doctor for her four-year-old check up.  We had previously been told that she was good on immunizations until she was 5 and got loaded up to get ready for kindergarten.  Little did we know, North Carolina laws have changed, and now they administer all those shots at age 4 since most kids go to pre-K programs.  So the poor girl got 4 shots plus a the flu shot mist up her nose.  I was not as okay with this.

Ree is a tough kid, and she was okay with just holding my hands while the nurse did her thing.  First shot, no problem.  Second shot, though, she arched her back and her whole body clenched with pain.  Her eyese immediately welled up with tears.  Yikes.  Although the other two shots were relatively uneventful, t that was just the beginning.

She was sick all weekend.  Really run down, awful sick.  By Friday night she said her legs hurt, but we figured she was just sore from where she had been jabbed.  By Saturday morning, she wasn't walking right and you could tell she muscles and joints were actually achy.  She also ran a fever that didn't want to break.  Of course we had a family work day at her preschool that day, so all of us were out the door at 7:40 in the morning for a day of family "fun."  The poor girl just sat at preschool not wanting to play with any of the other kids whose parents were busy working.  (At least the boys had a great time.  Michael followed around the older girls trying to get their attention and Leon spent over and hour and a half at one point playing in the pretend kitchen area.)

She did feel a bit better on Sunday night, but then she woke up on Monday covered in a rash.  By Tuesday she was starting to feel better, and yesterday she seemed to finally really be on the mend.  It's a good thing she is done with shots until 2017, because it may take me that long to accept that this way is "better."

The Chef

We know what Michael likes.  Michael likes watching TV.  Michael likes Elmo and Cookie Monster.  Michael likes Mickey Mouse.  Michael likes sports.  Michael also likes dancing and drama, which seem kind of odd with the sports obsession, but we go with it. 

But when it comes to Leon, we struggle with identifying what he likes.  Sad, huh?  As we think about finally decorating the boys' bedroom (it looks like a barracks, complete with naked, khaki colored walls and stripped down beds.  It's pretty sad.), we'd like to decorate it in a way they both like, but we have no idea what to do. The same is true in planning for their birthdays.  What does Leon like?

We do know that Leon likes climbing.  Monkey Boy climbs everything.  And he likes blankets.  As we go back and look at pictures from the summer, we have lots of photos of the nests Leon has made for himself all over the house.  I have given up on making our bed unless we have guests arriving.  Frequently when I come home from work there is nothing left on the bed but a bottom sheet.  Leon has removed the sheets, blankets, and pillows, and they are all piled in a corner along with his treasures.

On Sunday, while Michael was all zombied out watching soccer with Jeff, Jeff asked Leon what he liked.  Without a moment's hesitation, Leon said, "Cook."  And Leon does love to cook. 

Cooking for Leon involves putting small objects into a bowl and stirring with a spoon, but he does this all the time.  We have pictures of him doing this at home, doing this on vacation, doing this at various beaches.  It is his favorite thing to do.

He also takes an interest in real cooking.  He now demands, "Up!  Up!" when I am cooking, and he wants to check out each step of the process.  I am also convinced he thinks I am an idiot and that he needs to talk me through everything.  (He may be on to something here.)  Last week he told me how to give him a bath.  Yesterday, he told me how to make breakfast.

We were in his room reading when he decided he was ready to eat.  So he told me "food" and then pointed to his door.  So we went out of the room.  He led me to the kitchen, said "waffles" and took me to the freezer.  I got out the Eggos.  He then took me to the toaster oven and told me "ding."  (Guess what sound our toaster oven makes when the toasting cycle is done?)  So I put them in, and then held him when he asked so he could watch them cook.  He didn't tell me to get out a plate, but he did remind me that they needed to be "cut!"  That's when Micheal jumped in with the warning that they are "Hot!"  They are quite the team.

Whack-A-Mole Kids

Sometimes I feel like in having the boys, I gave birth to a couple of whack-a-moles.  As soon as we take care of a problem with one, the other one pops up with the same problem.

I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing how Michael gets up at 0-dawn-hundred (or earlier) every morning.  What I probably haven't shared, is that at least 2/3 of the time, Leon gets up then too.  Michael is not a quiet guy in the morning.

When we take walks in the morning, Leon is always half slumped in the wagon looking very much like he could use that first pot of coffee of the morning.  His eyes are baggy, his hair is crazy.  He sits up slightly and smiles when we say hi to a cat on the next street, but he stays pretty quiet.  Little did I know, he really loves this time.

Suddenly, mercifully, Michael started sleeping a little later this week.  I think he is worn out from my parents' visit.  Or maybe he has just had enough fun during the day lately that he doesn't feel the need to start it in the wee hours of the morning.  Whatever the cause, he slept until 6:40 Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  For him, this is huge.

However, by the third day, Leon realized they had been missing out on the morning "fun."  His sibling alarm clock wasn't waking him up, so at 5:00 Thursday morning he woke up crying.  I got him up, and he pointed to his bedroom door, indicating he wanted to go out.  He likes to drink cold water from the fridge, and I figured that's what he wanted.  I carried him to the kitchen, and when we got there he pointed to the garage door and said, "Go!  Go!"  I told him, no, we wouldn't be going anywhere yet.  The sun was still sleeping.  Defeated, he sat with me for a few minutes on the couch before asking to be tucked back in to bed.

This morning he got up at 4:00 and we went through the same routine.  It was actually a little cool in the house (by "cool" I mean not blazing hot), so when I took him back to bed, I tucked him in with one of his blankets.  At 5:15 he got up, gave me a big hug and told me he was "Done!" sleeping.  (Unlike his brother, at least Leon tries to kiss up by hugging and cuddling.)  This time I took his quilt, which is heavier than the afghan he drags around, and we cuddled under it on the couch.  I tucked him around him when I put him back in his bed.  He was finally warm and cozy and slept right through Michael's moans at 6:15.

Water Boy

We usually only give the boys cold food or food that is no more than lukewarm.  Since they still mainly eat with their fingers, this prevents burns on both their hands and mouth.  Occasionally, though, they will be desperate for food, and Michael will be moaning, and we will give them the food before it cools completely.  This happened a little over a week ago, and Michael learned a new word.  "HOT!"  The boy has a healthy fear of hot.  This is good, since he learned it without actually getting burned, and because he doesn't seem to fear anything else.

In particular, the boy has no fear of water.  At the beach, he runs straight for the water.  Once he is in the water, he keeps pointing east, wanting to go deeper and deeper in the water.  He doesn't care when waves knock him down. (He doesn't always get up right away either.  We can't help but wonder if he has a death wish.)  He just wants more!

My parents now have an apartment in Wilmington, and on Sunday night we took the kids swimming at the pool in their apartment complex.  When Michael spotted the water in front of him, it was more of the same.  He couldn't get enough of the water.  He wanted to kick his feet and doggie paddle.  He let my mom hold him so he could swim on his belly.  He let her hold him so he could float on his back.  He loved every second of it.  This child is definitely our swimmer.

Wake Up Call

This morning instead of waking up to the usual moans of Michael, I woke up to the sound of Michael in his crib calling "mom?  Mom?  MOM?  Moooooommm?"  I hustled out of bed to get him before it turned into moans.  It was a nice way to wake up, especially since we "slept in" until 6:23.