Monday, September 29, 2008

My Bad

I think if you take a look at the archive of posts, the number and frequency of posts is directly related to the time of year and the expected workload: I have less to do in the late spring and summer, so can sit and organize my thoughts. During the rest of the year, things get a little crazy… Regardless, here’s what’s been going on:

Colin can roll over now. He’s rolled both left and right, whereas Danica only rolled right. There’s not a lot of opportunity for him to do it because we try to keep him off the floor so that Danica doesn’t accidentally step on him (like she did Dad’s dinner last night). However, both Kindra and I have found him awake in his pack-and-play on his tummy. He kinda gets pissed once he’s on his stomach, but has been better about rolling back over. Oh, and so far, I’ve seen him to one-and-a-half full rolls.

Also, if I haven’t mentioned it, Colin’s much more social and smiley than Danica ever was (or currently is). Danica didn’t have an issue being held by other people at the same age, but she never smiled and giggled as much as he does. Whereas she had her pensive stare while she sorted out who’s who and what’s what, Colin is much more laid back. He’s started to get more interested in looking around at things, but mostly he just follows people. He loves to watch his sister anytime she’s in his line of vision.

Unfortunately, over the past four or five days, Colin’s been a little momma’s boy. He’s had a difficult time falling asleep without being held by his mother. Most of my tricks to get him to sleep haven’t worked recently, so it’s kinda frustrating. It’s really sad when his mom takes Danica to bed, he cranes his neck to watch her go, and then whines about it. =(

In Danica news, her new obsession is ballet. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s been pretty steady, since we find it pretty amusing. The daughters of our daycare provider have some kind of kid ballet DVD they started watching a couple of months ago, and Danica’s picked up on it. She’s constantly twirling around and wants pretty much everybody else to “do ballet,” too. FYI, “ballet” consists of spinning around with the occasional leg lift… There’s also some kind of side shuffle that debuted over the weekend. Mom has now taken the obsession to another level by purchasing a leotard and tutu yesterday.

Speaking of ballet, our daycare provider recently took all the kids to a fabric store to do some shopping so that she could make little pillows for them to use at her house. Danica, naturally, picked out a material with ballet slippers on it and now refers to the pillow as her “ballet pillow.” It’s really cute when she talks about the other kids’ pillows, which include Elmo and “choo-choo chrains.”

The Girl’s language skills get better and better every day, and she surprised us yesterday by telling her Ah-Mah that she was reading “Raggedy Ann.” She loves the book, but we’ve never heard her say the words as clearly as she did. The kind of sad thing right now is when she tries to express her thoughts and just doesn’t have the vocabulary. She’ll start a thought, make a face as she concentrates and stutter a bit – you can really see the wheels turning. It’s kinda heartbreaking.

Couple of funny Danica’s stories:

We were looking at houses recently and after going through all the rooms, asked Danica something to the effect of which room she liked or which one she wanted. She looked up with big puppy-dog eyes and said, “I… my… like… I like my room! At home!” Heh.

Colin sleeps in a pack-and-play against the wall about a foot-and-a-half from our bed. Danica figured out that she could climb into it a couple of weeks ago (it’s actually very stable) and was in it yesterday when I asked her, “How are you going to get out?” She looked at me, grabbed hold of the top, and swung her leg up onto the top of the rail. Pulling herself up, she then reached across to grab hold of the comforter on our bed, lunged forward to get two hands on it while dragging her legs onto the rail of the pack-and-play, then proceeded to steady herself between the rail and the bed, finally stepping down. Her reply: “Like that!”

*Sigh* Reason #257 for me to have a cam strapped to my head at all times.

Oh, and by the way… Colin’s 5 months old yesterday. Wow.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

This Just In...

Good news! Chances of post-mortem ethereal survival have now doubled with the news that hell hath, in fact, frozen over.

In other news, Danica actually slept from 10:30 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. last night, and Colin has slept from midnight to 6:45 a.m. the past couple of nights. I’m fairly doubtful this will continue…

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Danica Stories of the Week

As typical, Danica woke up and came out of her room last night/this morning around 12:30 a.m. I happened to be out in the living room, so I quickly scooped her up and went back into her room with her. I laid down in the bed with her and she fiddled around like she normally does – adjusting and readjusting her blankie and position (kinda like a dog making its bed).

She asked for some more water, so I told her to wait while I filled up her cup and then left the room. Of course, she started crying, and when I came back, she wanted to cuddle up (a.k.a. “Mommy/Daddy bao-bao”*). She was still sobbing a little when she said the saddest little thing:

“Daddy… don’t leave me.”

*URK*

*Tear in eye*

Of course, that’s now become her new bedtime trick, to keep us in her room with her longer. This does not bode well for the future.

* * *

More select Danica lines, relayed by Mom:

While watching Mom trim her bangs: “Mommy’s hair broken?”

Bedtime conversation:

Mom: “Mommy loves you.”

Danica: “Mommy love me?”

M: “Yes.”

D: “Daddy love me?”

M: “Yes.”

D: “Blankie love me?”

M: “Yes.”

D: “I love blankie.”

After hearing our daycare provider, Jessie, say something about her husband, Dave: “No! Coley’s Daddy!” (For those of you not in the know, Coley = Nicole, Kindra’s cousin who came out to help us when Colin was born. David is Nicole’s father and Kindra’s uncle, who Danica only referred to as “Coley’s Daddy” while we were in Iowa this summer).

I would’ve put this one in its own separate blog entry, but I’m hoping it’ll be buried here… Danica strapped herself into her old “magic chair” (vibrating baby chair) and then tried to stand up a little while later, forgetting she was strapped in. She ended up on the floor, face down, with her chair strapped to her butt. Kindra asked her, “Need help, genius?”, unstrapped The Girl, and righted the chair. Danica promptly sat back down in the chair, shook her head, and proclaimed, “I no genius.” Um… yeah.

* – In case you’re wondering, “bao-bao” in Mandarin means “to hold.”