4 Months

It's past four months for Micah at the moment, but he had his checkup last week and weighed in at 14 pounds, 10 ounces. He's actually only in about the 60th percentile for weight, so he's fairly normal, but he just seems so huge to me, especially when it took her over a year to even appear on the growth chart! He is almost 25 inches, and the doctor said that he appears to be entirely healthy. We've taken him off of the medicine, and there have been a few times when I think he could have used it, but mostly he seems to be fine without it, which is very nice.

He has been a handful the past few weeks, though. He has decided that he wanted to start getting up multiple times in the middle of the night again, so we're working on that by ignoring him. Sometimes it's the only solution! For instance, last night he woke up around 1:00 and I heard him, but I had already decided to let him cry for a little bit of he woke up around that time, and he cried briefly and then went back to sleep until early morning. We'll see if that happens again tonight, but hopefully we can help him break the cycle.

He started to eat rice cereal last week, too, and today he's going to try some veggies. Yum! He is much less upset on his stomach now and likes to push himself up to see the world. I also think he's getting very close to rolling over. He easily puts himself on his side when he's on his back, but most babies roll over from their tummy to their back, so we've been working on that. He laughs a ton and gets a big smile on his face when he sees us or when people play with him. And he continues to grow out of his clothes, although I think that's slowing down somewhat.

Alexis is also a handful. She has turned into a woman of extremes, which simply means that she's two and shows it. She's having a hard time learning patience, which is normal for her age, and is very intense about everything. It means that she is incredibly adorable and incredibly exasperating all at the same time, but she's learning and we're leaning how to handle her. One of her favorite things right now is to have us spin around the room with her at night and have her put her blanket on as a cape and fly her around the room as SuperAlex. (Right now she's eating a banana from earlier and is looking at it saying, "That's got bad on it.") We are personally amazed at her vocabulary, but that's how it goes for all kids, right? I love how she knows how to use words like "other" correctly; that seems like it would be a hard one for a kid. Jason has also taken to calling her riff-raff, and she'll say, "I'm not riff-raff. I'm Ala!" Ala is because she can't say Alex correctly most of the time. Then we'll say "Hi Ala!" And she'll say "I'm not Ala. I'm ALA!" And that just makes us crack up every time because there's such a distinction in her brain but not in her vocalization. She still doesn't want anyone to sing to her; I'm going to be really sad if she doesn't like music. In other news, she has such sensitive skin! Now that the weather is turning colder, she's getting the same dry spots on her face that she got last year. Her bangs are still growing out, so her hair is always in her face, but I think it will start to look better soon, and it will be nice when she starts keeping her barrettes in her hair instead of pulling them out.

We decided to spend Thanksgiving at home this year, and it was wonderful! My parents came up and we had crab cakes, fresh greens and green beans from their garden, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, and homemade hush puppies. I have learned some Southern cooking from Jason's family! (I made the casserole and hush puppies. I haven't mastered the huch puppies yet, but they were still pretty good.) I also made a bunch of desserts, so we had mint chocolate chip cookies, homemade ice cream, apple pie (frozen), and dirty red velvet cupcakes. By "dirty" I mean that they weren't actually red because the food coloring for the recipe would have been SEVEN DOLLARS! Ridiculous. Anyway, I think it all turned out pretty good, and I don't know if I'll be able to go back to having turkey for Thanksgiving when my mom makes crab cakes. And she made greens and I actually liked them, which is a first for me! Alexis actually didn't eat with us because by the time we sat down to eat, she was exhausted and ended up falling asleep on the couch. Micah was asleep as well, so we ended up being abble to just sit around the table and have a really relaxing meal. While we missed family, it was great to spend Thanksgiving at home and to have a really relaxing time. Jason and I just decided that we're going to make ice cream sandwiches from our dessert ingredients.

I started class this week and my students have their first assignments due today, so let the grading commence! I have a few lectures I need to record for the second session by the end of the day on Sunday, and we'll take Jason to the airport on Sunday after church. He'll be in Bolivia for a week and get back next Saturday night. I'm still working on Mondays and Tuesdays for Smarthinking. My schedule is five hours a day dispersed throughout the days, which is too much right now, so next semester I should be cutting back. (We knew when I got hired that I would need to work a few more hours than I normally would, so its worth it because we know it's only for a limited period of time.) Next semester I should only be working six hours a week. What's great is that I'll have a break for Christmas from both of my jobs because Smarthinking breaks for Christmas and the Eastern class is split by break, too. (This means that I'll have extended time to prep for the two weeks of class after Christmas!) We should also be getting our kitchen counters replaced in a few weeks, which is going to be wonderful; they're in really bad shape, along with out sink, which is rusting, and our water faucet, which decided to officially break last week. We're hoping that's the last major thing we need to do to the house, although things are always coming up, like the fact that we currently have a fairly large hole punched in Alexis' bedroom door and really just need to replace all of the upstairs doors. Little by little, though, right? Jason and I have declared next year the "year of saving" for the Edgerton family, so hopefully nothing huge will need to be done next year.

Fall Pics

The Christmas Edition

Yes, it's that time of year again! I can't believe Christmas is in less than two months. Time is going way too quickly these days. Micah is sitting in my lap, wearing pajamas meant for 6-month-old kids, and Alexis is struggling to fit into 24 month clothes. Such is life!

Well, Jason and I both have our normal wishlists, and the kids both have wishlists at amazon attached to my name. (You should be able to find them if you go to the left of my list.) This may sound crazy or picky, but here's some information:

1. Alexis understands presents. And while presents are great, we don't want to overwhelm her and have her associate people with presents. So, in light of that, we're hoping that we can convince everyone to limit the amount of gift-giving to maybe around three presents. I know that things like clothes and books can be different, but when it comes to toys or thiings she can instantly ply with, hopefully maybe about three would be good? I hope everyone can understand that we're trying to make CHristmas about more than presents. And we also don't want everyone spending lots of money, either!
2. A bunch of places have a lot of great ten dollar toys this year. We also don't mind used stuff. If you take a look at the wishlists, we have some notes about where you can get things for a better price than amazon, and amazon now lets you mark something as purchased, even if you didn't get it there. Games are a ridiculous price at ToysRUs this week.
3. For clothes, Micah is probably going to be in 9 month clothes for Christmas, or shortly thereafter. Alexis is a good bet at 2T or 24m. However, one piece pajamas with feet tend to run really, really long on her, so those don't work very well.
4. Books are also great for either of the kids, and used books are wonderful! We have quite a few, but some classics that we don't have that would be great for either of them are:
Goodnight, Moon
books by Ezra Jack Keats (other than The Snowy Day and Peter's Chair)
Where the Wild Things Are
Corduroy
The Runawy Bunny
5. The listed items are just ideas, so if you see something that you think would be great, that's wonderful! Big things might be hard for us to get home, though.