Happy New Year (taken yesterday)

My favorite picture is of Eleanor giving Henry a kiss.  She's such a sweetie.  If you ask her for a kiss she leans in and plants her whole face on you and then smiles really big afterwords; so proud of herself.  I also really love the shot of her two little teeth.

I included a picture of the pomegranate tree in our front yard.  The weather this winter has been very wacky.  It's like one long extended Fall.  It's been in the 60's and 70's.  The leaves have been incredibly beautiful and they are still not all off the trees.  I raked the front yard today.

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Taken last Sunday, December 19, 2010

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13 months...

Hello, Diane!

Whether your toddler's been walking for months or is still happy just cruising, one thing's for sure: She's not about to slow down. With great delight, she'll soon learn that walking frees her hands to unroll reams of toilet paper, knock glasses off coffee tables, and empty your bedside drawers. What to do? Spend lots of time at the park, and notch up your childproofing efforts so your toddler has plenty of space to explore without getting hurt.

I just got this in my inbox today, right after seeing Eleanor remove all of the Kleenex from the box I just bought today.  She is giving me one good work out.  I am constantly putting back the books she unshelved, the clothes she removed from the drawers, the laundry she removed from baskets, the shoes she removed from the shoe-shelf, the rags from the rag drawer, and so on.  Henry did not prepare me for this.  He never one time took a book off the shelf.  He never unraveled toilet paper, he didn't rip things, knock things over, throw things, etc.  He was perfectly content to just be.

I vividly recall being at my friend Liz's house and watching in horror as her son Josh did all of these things and thinking how lucky I was to not have to deal with that.  Ha! I do now!  When Henry was a toddler I did notice he was not like the other toddlers.  He was not rambunctious.  He was uber-compliant.  He sat in my lap and liked to be read to for over an hour (I still have yet to be able to read one single book to E before she rips it out of my hands and tosses it).  I just can't get over how different they are.  It's actually cool.  It sounds like I'm complaining but really I'm just pointing these things out so the kids can look back one day and know about their early years.  I know this will all be over so quickly.  I am just trying to ground myself in the now.

Sleeping and eating are not worth noting at this time due to her week-long cold.  But needless to say, neither are good.  Eleanor has shed many of her former words (haven't heard her say mama in forever) and now she just says, "This!" and "That!" pointing at things for us to take her to or get for her.  She also says "Up" a lot and then "dog" .  She will say "Yes" and "da-da" but not often.

(Update: By the end of today, Yes and DaDa were said frequently.  Da-da when I showed her pictures of them together and "Yes" in the same manner she says "This" and "That".  So now we have three words from her that mean exactly the same thing= "Give me".

Meh...

Eleanor is still sick.  Justin and Henry just left to go to Dallas to have Christmas without us at his family's house.  This makes me sad because I was really looking forward to going.

But what is really really making me sad right now (besides the both of us having pink eye) is we have a cluster fly infestation.

What is this you ask?  I have never heard of these in my whole life and even the exterminator we've used for years never heard of them.  I've done all sorts of looking on the internet and they are very common up north or anywhere it's cold--and the websites even say they are not found in states bordering Mexico.  But, we have them.  Badly.  So the deal is, they do not breed or lay eggs or any of that indoors, they do that in the soil outside, they carry no disease, and they do not bite or eat anything but flowers (so weird!).  But they winter in people's attics, and the cracks and voids in walls, windows, etc.  And they emerge when they think it is Spring.  Well, since we've had unusually warm weather, they think it is spring.  They mostly hang out on the windows,  they are larger than houseflies, and they are slow and easy to kill.  But we are having to kill about 60 a day to stay on top of them, and this could go on for months.

I try to enjoy my day and then I look over and see one or two or 5 and I HAVE to kill them.  It's become a very OCD-like thing for me.  I am constantly angry at these things--they're loud--you can hear them, and since they are so big and slow, when they fly in front of you you can't just ignore them.  When you leave the house and come back 2 hours later, there will be 20 more of them scattered throughout the kitchen.  There's some satisfaction in killing them --like, ah, now your dead, I can move on, but they just keep coming back, and will for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks.

If it's not one thing it's another.  My new mantra.

 

84 degrees...(AKA Big Brother and Little Sister. AKA "I want a robot")

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Lady Longhorns...

A week ago, we took the kids to see the Lady Longhorns look pretty sloppy against the Lady Vols. It was Eleanor’s first game and she was pretty excited by the whole experience. The cheering, the band…the awesome bounce passes…she loved it all. Henry was pretty excited about going to the game until he realized we were going to watch someone else play and that people weren’t coming to watch us.[gallery]

Polaroids!

I've been really missing this guy lately...

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Still sick

Henry seemed better (no fever since Wednesday) so we sent him to school today.  He complained of a headache and I thought, okay, he's still sick but once we gave him ibuprofen, he was completely fine.  So I thought, well, it's dumb to keep the boy home b/c of a headache he may or may not have, and today was the Christmas pageant we were all looking forward to.  I stayed home from work b/c I have a raging cold, and Eleanor stayed home because she got shots yesterday and was absolutely miserable today.  She went to sleep at 5PM last night and did not wake up till 8AM this morning.  And when she did, she was NOT happy.

Anyway, as I was getting ready to head over to Henry's school to see my sweet little Shepard and gush with pride, we got a call from the school that he was not feeling well.  I dashed over there, saw all the parents getting their seats, and walked in my boys classroom and he was slumped in a chair in the back, while all the other children were in costume and excitedly flitting around the room, to Christmas music.  Henry burst into tears when he saw me.  He had been holding it in.

Tonight I was reading to him and he said, "After this book I want to go to bed."  My poor little guy!

My little Bobblehead...

I took Eleanor to her 12 mos well-check appointment today. I am trying not to worry, but Eleanor is growing at a very slow pace.  She is in the 25% for height and 10% weight and in the 75% for head circumference (the doc told me it might be a few months before she walks because of her head size in proportion to her body and that this was why she was late-ish on the crawling).  It does comfort me  that 20lbs is the 50%, so we're not talking a huge difference.  If E had eaten a big breakfast and had a full diaper, she'd weigh that:-)

Weight 19lbs
Height 28 1/2 inches

The doc was not the least bit worried, so that's good.

Sick boy...

Henry and Eleanor were both fever free yesterday and then around 4:30 AM today he woke up on fire.  He had a 103.8 fever and the shakes.  He wanted to lay in bed or on the couch all day.  He had no energy and did not eat much.  He said his body felt heavy and his eyes felt "wiggly" and his head hurt.  We were trying to get him outside for some sun and fresh air (it was 76 degrees today) and at first he didn't want to (unheard of) and then we said he could sit in Eleanor's stroller and dad would push him.  He got in with a blanket wrapped around him and was happy.  I fear this is the flu but hope I am wrong.

Tonight when I was cuddling with him at bedtime he told me "When I am a grown up I'm going to buy you a sheet.  A pink one that's your size." And when I showed that I was obviously moved by this statement (his lovie is a shredded up sheet he's had since he was a baby and he sleeps with it and needs it when he's sad, sick or injured) and then he said he was going to give me TWO sheets.  I told him that would make me feel so happy.  And it would.

Friday is Henry's school Christmas pageant.  They've been rehearsing this whole week (their songs) and today they got their costumes.  I'm so worried he will miss it.  I've been looking forward to this pageant since last year.

That's what I get...

Both of my children have fevers.

Oh, Christmas Tree

We put up the tree yesterday and decorated it this morning.  We tried to put all the decorations safely above the grabber's reach, but Henry decided a tiny section at the very bottom is where all of his ornaments should go.    We've been clandestinely moving them to safety ever since.

Feeling better...

Most of my life I've had an incredible amount of good fortune. I think that's why the month of November was so jarring. Our house/cars/health have rarely had any problems. We have had to spend almost nothing on the house in years (besides optional cosmetic stuff). The cars are both a decade old, so that's just a given. And it's Fall/Winter--so of course the kids will take turns getting sick. Eleanor has been so healthy and nary a runny nose until this past Fall, so we were just lucky to go that long without her getting sick. Same with Henry. He's rarely sick. And Kitty disappearing for 3 days--pretty common occurrence for indoor-outdoor cats, as I've come to learn. So, while it was overwhelming at the time, in hindsight I see it was just...normal stuff that happened all in one month. Maybe it's better that way. I will say my concept of money is really warped now. When you have to drop close to 10K in one month --every other sum seems tiny. My car troubles were about $700 and I was like, "Oh, phew, that's not so bad."

Speaking of money and spending...it's that time of year again. When I do none of it. I can't stand to shop (except for food, which I sort of enjoy). I don't get a shopper's high that I've had some former clients describe to me. I get something more like shopper's hives. So, we're only giving photos this year (as if this were different from last year). But, rest assured the grandparents are covering the children on Christmas. Henry is already in a panic state about all the wrapped presents my mom brought this past weekend.

But I do very much enjoy one thing about Christmas giving, and that's our tradition of giving lots of money we do not have to Henry's teachers. I LOVE it. That gives me a high. Why?  Because their work is SO important and they are not compensated enough.  Because Henry's favorite teacher also moonlights at Home Depot.  Because  I'm pretty sure of all the kids in Henry's class, our son comes from the least affluent family--by a wide margin, and we are (probably) giving the most, by a wide margin.  There are few things in my life I get to feel smug about, but gifting a wad of money to the people who spend the bulk of their day with my son--that makes me happy.

Catch up...

Apparently Henry has entered into the cross-dressing-daredevil-raccoon stage of preschooler-hood. He loves to walk around in my heels, wants his nails painted, he's fascinated with me putting on makeup and begs me to put it on him, and he wants to wear my clothes. He's also, something very new to him, become quite the daredevil. He's getting injured a lot more. Taking more chances with climbs and jumps and gotten a lot friskier with friends. They think it's funny to punch kick and hit each other (just with the older boys at school, for some reason). He's also started ransacking every single nook and cranny of our house. I found him digging through the trash yesterday and then screeching, "A KITE!" and he pulled out a long piece of colorful plastic, coated in the soggy remains of the morning cereal. He's also been doing this thing where he'll find some little object, appliance, thingamajig, and then mess with it until it breaks. If you see him concentrating on some small thing in his hands, that's what he's doing. He's thinking, "Hmmm...how can I break this?"

He's also pretty out of whack on sleep, lately. He all of a sudden, out of the blue, stopped napping at school. This is from the boy, prior to last month, I could count on three fingers how many naps he's missed, in his entire life. I don't know what's going on but it is not fun for us in the evening. He's now getting about 11 hours at night. And on non-school days he'll still take a two hour nap and then sleep ten at night. So 11-12 hrs is what it is these days. Hope it's enough. It certainly doesn't feel like it's enough but there's not a whole lot I can do about it.

Lastly, Henry is a very protective big brother. He is terrified of her falling down the stairs on the front porch. I'll run back in the house b/c I've forgotten something and come back to find he's got her in a head-lock b/c she's gotten too close to the stairs (she actually is pretty careful and does not attempt going down stairs yet--she's still in the examining stage of just starting at them, trying to figure them out.) He calls her "Sweetie" and will randomly kiss her at times, and uses this really sweet voice with her. When she's not around he always asks where she is. He can also be really grabby with toys and yells at her when she touches him, but that goes without saying.

Eleanor has really come into herself these last two months. I've found myself falling pretty head over heels for her lately, and maybe that's not something to admit out loud about your child who is already a year old, but better late than never, right? She makes me feel so happy inside--just looking at her, watching her be her own person. She's so happy and smiley and lets me give her the mandatory 20 kisses per hour. She is so independent for a little thing--and really has been from the get-go. I can put her down in the front room, by the play-kitchen or train-table, and she will entertain herself for 20 min and then crawl to another room in the house, find something else to do, and then crawl to the back out of the house and find Henry or play with the toys in that room. She can now go up steps, easily stand up and get down, and knows enough words to communicate her agenda. When I dropped her off at school yesterday, she did her excited kick-laugh thing when she saw her teacher, and I put her down and she crawled over to her and got lots of hugs and kisses and I left. What a relief to see her so attached to her teacher.

I really hope to remember this image of Eleanor: When I go in her room after she's woken from her naps, she squeals and kicks her legs wildly--sort of like a right-side-up inchworm. She is SO EXCITED. Then I scoop her up and immediately she reaches her arm out to something..anything and says, "That!".

In other news, E has finally regained her weight following illness and now weighs what Henry did at 4 months old.

Scenes from a party...

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Some classroom updates...

We have been enjoying exploring with rocks.  We used the balancing scale to test the weights of the different rocks we collected.  We also had fun painting some of those rocks.  Then we used some of the rocks to make miniature rock gardens like the ones we look at on the computer.  We also got to pretend to be rock hounds as we excavated rocks and mineral from earth mounds with chisels and brushes.  We used our rock chart to identify what type of rock we unearthed.

We'll continue exploring with rocks next week.  We will also begin talking about our family traditions and how different families celebrate this special time of the year.  On Monday, Adele's mom will come and read us a story about Hanukkah.  Have a wonderful weekend.

We are enjoying learning about what advent means and why we celebrate the season.  We will be making ornaments to decorate our tree.  You are also welcome to help your child make ornaments at home to bring to our daily service.  As we prepare for the Christmas season and our pageant celebration we will be talking about our family traditions and traditions of different faiths around the world.

Along with celebrating this special season we will be exploring a topic that all our friends are interested in - rocks.  I'm sure all of you found several hidden in your child's pockets or buried in their cubbies.  Preschoolers love rocks.  They are all budding geologist and rock hounds.  They love digging for rocks, sorting rocks, counting rocks and so on.  So we will spend time over the next few weeks using rocks to build on our skills in the areas of science, math, social studies, literacy, technology.  We filled our sensory table with various types of rocks and are learning the names of these rocks and learning some of the characteristics of the different rocks. We also used the rocks to count and sort by color, size, texture, etc.  We read the story Everybody Needs a Rock, then went of a rock hunt to find a special rock by applying the ruling laid out in the story.  I really love this story because the central theme of the story involves believing in your own choices and respecting the choices of others.

Crystals seem to be one of the favorite types of rocks.  A fun cooking activity that demonstrates how crystals are formed involves making rock candy.   Today we made our own batch of rock candy which is simply formed sugar crystals.  Everyone helped pour in the sugar and water.  Then we voted on what color to make and what flavor.  The rock candy will take 5 to 7 days to form.  Not only will be using our scientific observation skills to record the changes we will be forced to use self control as we patiently wait for the candy to form.  If all goes well we will all get a small piece to sample next week.

We had a fun sensory rich day exploring with corn and popcorn.  We not only played with popcorn in the sensory table, but we popped some in a popcorn popper which I think is so much better than microwave popcorn.  It's also much more fun. We were able to use all our senses for this activity.  First we touched the kernels with our hands before pouring them into the popper.  We talked about how they felt and compared them to the ears of corn we have on hand.  We then waited with anticipation and listened with our ears as the popper begin to heat up.  We watched with our eyes as the popcorn kernels whirled around and around in the popper.  Then we could smell the popcorn with our noses as it popped up and into the bowl.  Lastly, we got to use our taste buds to sample this tasty treat.  Tomorrow we will make our own corn chips out of cornmeal.  Have a good evening<div

We've been enjoying sampling different varieties of apples.  So far we've tried Honeycrisp, Granny Smith, and Red Delicious.  We discovered that they each have a different taste and texture even though they are all apples.  Next week we will try other varieties.  We will also do a couple of simple cooking activities with the apples.  So, please one apple of any variety with your child by Wednesday. We will use them to make applesauce and an apple crisp.

We have also been exploring with gravity.  We put a small ramp in our room and have rolled different items at different levels to see how fast and how far they would go.  We've had a little extra outside time since the weather is so pleasant.  Besides, we have really enjoyed hunting for acorns and pecans on the playground.  This afternoon we will start to paint the clay leaves we made.  We'll leave them here over the weekend to dry.

What will it be next?

The clutch went out on my car this morning.

I'm thinking health problem.  And not some little pansy cold, either.  It's gonna be good.  Something chronic.

Let's do this.