The Edgerton Family

Christmas with the Edgertons (.ie. The Murphy's Law Homecoming)

2012-01-06T04:11:00.000-08:00

It's currently January 6, and I am sitting at my grandmother's dining room table, watching my son eat toast that isn't falling apart (like it would in La Paz) and listening to Alexis watch Sesame Street. Why yes, we are still in Virginia. What, you ask, happened to this trip home? Allow me to elaborate on our journey. (The story of woe comes first. Regular news comes later...)

We woke up about 3:00 am on Tuesday morning, December 6 to begin our 22 hour trip back to Virginia. The kids were wonderful. This included a number of challenges. The first of which was our layover in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. We flew about an hour and had to get off the plane there. The problem, though, was that our ticket said 9:30 for the next flight. When we ordered the tickets and checked on times, it said something like 9:00. We went through security and looked for gate number four, where we were supposed to be. We found gate four, but the problem was that this gate was BEFORE going through customs, and there was no obvious (or even hidden) way to get back to gate four. When we attempted to ask someone, we got the blank stare reactions, which translates into " Why are you asking me such a logical question? Are you an idiot?" We proceeded through customs, hoping to find a way back to our gate, ate some breakfast, and checked our flight time. The board said 11:30 on time, which made no sense to us because it shouldn't have been on time according to our other information. We tried to ask someone. There was no one to ask. 9:30 came and went without our flight being called. We gathered the children up, starting to fear that we would miss this flight somehow, and began to gather around other gates. We basically jumped on anyone in any sort of uniform to ask them where to go. We walked back and forth between two gates multiple times because people told us to go different places. We were finally informed that we should wait in the waiting area (where in the world was that?) to start boarding. We watched other passengers gather in confusion and frustration until finally people started to set up ome table for yet another security checkpoint so that we could go through behind customs back to our gate. We pointlessly asked someone why there wasn't a sign informing people of this information, since this obviously happened every day. We received the blank stare of idiocy (our idiocy apaprently, not theirs). We finally walked down the hall to see hanging signs for gate three, gate five, but where was gate four? There was a sign for gate nine? We looked up and found the sign on the wall that actually said gate four instead of gate nine. We receieved a shoulder shrug of explanation. We boarded and prepared ourselves for eleven hours on a plane with two awake kids.

And the kids truly were great. This is wonderful because I can have some confidence that they're going to be pretty good on our overnight flight back to La Paz on January 20. Jason's not coming with us because he is going to Ecuador first.

The 20th, you ask? Wait! Let me do some counting! Does this mean that you have been in the states for already over four weeks? And that you'll have been in the US for about seven weeks?

Why yes, yes it does.

The day after we got here, we mailed off our passports and forms to get our visas, which arrived before Christmas. We were all good on that side of things. However, about a week after we got here, we were informed that back in Bolivia the offices that dealt with our paperwork were not going to process any of these applications between December 20 and January 23. This affects us because after we got our new visas here, we have 30 days once we land in Bolivia to complete the process. You need at least 15 days for this completion. We had always planned on leaving a few days after Christmas, but if we did this, we wouldn't have enough time to get our visas, and Jason's traveling to Ecuador made things a little more difficult, too. All of this to say that we ended up being here a lot longer than anticipated.

Alex will miss a total of three weeks of school, which really stinks, but she's excited about going back. We couldn't have done this without our familes. They've been putting us up, feeding us, helping us take care of kids, etc. The kids are doing a really great job overall, but you can tell when the constant moving becomes taxing. We were just at my parents' house for over a week, and you could tell that they were starting to settle in because they were calmer and not as out of sorts. It started to feel stable. And while I'm not necessarily a person who needs routine or stability, this has been a really long time of not having a stable life for the kids. We have literally been living out of suitcases since the end of September, when we began selling stuff in our old house. They need a regular life, and we're really looking forward to getting back to La Paz to provide that. While there will still be a ton of stuff to do in our new apartment (which we've only lived in for three days), it's ours, and that means something. And they'll have beds. And their toys. It will be nice.

Ultimately, though, it's probably better that we're here anyway. For a few reasons. 1. Our stuff still isn't there. It was held up because of labor strikes and other reasons, and now it's apparently in customs because there is medicine in a few of the boxes that they have to check. Hopefully it will be sitting in our apartment when we arrive there in two weeks. 2. We still don't have our furniture. I think that everyone selling us stuff forgot that they were taking off two weeks for Christmas or something, because it all should have been there by now. But it's not, so right now all I'm really hoping is that it's there by the time we get there.

Enough of our tale of misfortune, though. In reality, it's not exactly a tale of misfortune. After all, we got a free trip home, right? And how often do people make a huge move like this and get the chance to buy stuff back here only a few months after moving? And we have purchased a lot of stuff. My entire family doubts my packing prowess, though. However, I just "officially" did a trial packing, and have 1 1/2 empty carry-ons after it's all said and done, which was great. (Maybe I'll bring back some Trader Joe's pumpkin pancake mix... :) The real packing problem has been having enough hard shell cases for things we have. We have these large, soft duffel bags to use for a lot of things, but quite a bit of stuff can't go into something like that. Anyway, we have space for everything we bought and all our toys. AND when we got here last night, I knew I had left a coat, but I also discovered that I had apparently left another huge bag. (I had thought I brought four of those bags because they're easily packable if I didn't use them, but it wasn't at my parents' house.) SO MORE STUFF!!!! That sounds weird. What it means is that I can probably try to get them some more clothes for the kids to grow into and a few things I wanted to bring back but wasn't sure about (like mixing bowls) can go. Maybe even some of my old tupperware, which would be nice. Regardless, we still have quite a bit of space.

Christmas we great. The kids got a ton of stuff, but people were very cognizant of the fact that we had to take it all back. Alex got two Disney princess Barbies, Squinkies, My Little Ponies, and a bunch of other things. Micah was all about cars and trucks and tractors this Christmas, and he got ultra-excited anytime he saw anything with Cars or Mickey Mouse. One of his favorite things, though were his Hexbugs, these tiny little battery-powered "bugs" that skitter around different habitats that you can build. He adores them. And he loves this plane we got him that he flies around and makes the "mouth" chomp people while he flies it through the air and makes noises. We spent two nights in a hotel around Christmas Eve, which was actually really nice (especially because one of our nights ended up being free, but I'll explain that later), and took the kids to Jason's parents' house in their pajamas that morning to open their presents from us, which was lots of fun. Jason got me a gift certificate to a store in La Paz that I've fallen in love with, speakers for my laptop, and a new coat! And people gave us money to contribute to us being able to buy a television, which was really, really great because they're very expensive in Bolivia.

Speaking of money issues, this has actually been really funny while we've been here. On the bad side of things, we've had to shell out some money for our car, which hasn't sold yet. We'll have to spend a few hundred dollars because our power window regulator has fallen apart, so that still needs to be fixed, and we had to pay to renew out registration. However, we've had three "interesting" situations:
1. My new coat. To make a very long story short, there was a hole in the coat that I got that was going to require a seamstress to take off the collar and redo it so that it would be truly repaired. After a LOT of time, half a dozen trips to the store, a lot of misinformation from Target, and no other coats in two states, Target gave the money back for the alterations. However, instead of refunding the amount for the alterations, they refunded the other amount, meaning that we we charged about three dollars for the coat. When we finally realized this and called the store, we were told after everything we've been through "don't worry about it" by the manager. So we didn't. FREE COAT!
2. We bought two Phineas and Ferb movies for the kids to give each other for Christmas. But they weren't movies; they were just episodes, which wasn't described at amazon. Anyway, when I contacted amazon to ask if they could change the description, they just gave us our money back. (They did the same thing for another small item. Amazon is awesome!) FREE PHINEAS AND FERB!
3. The first night in the hotel we barely slept. It was really warm that night, and we needed the ac. However, when the ac turned on, it rattled so loudly that we woke up every time and didn't sleep until we turned it off. Not a comfortable evening. When we told the hotel and filled out a survey, they were really apologetic about it and refunded the cost of the room for one night. Country Inns and Suites. FREE ROOM!
Oh, and there's actually another one. Kind of:
4. Yesterday afternoon I got an email from my property management company stating that my hot water heater had stopped working and had to be replaced to the tune of $975. They took care of working it out, which is part of what they're paid to do. However, he didn't say anything about my home warranty, which kind of concerned me. When I called to ask him about this, he said he didn't see one on record. When he went back to check, they had all of our information about it, but it had not been put into their computers. When he called the warranty company, they said that if we had gotten preapproval that I would have paid the $55 deductible and they would have paid the rest. Without batting an eye (although I'm sure with a ton of frustration on his part), he said that we would be responsible for the deductible and they would pay the balance. Which means we're not out a thousand bucks like we were afraid of for a few hours. FREE REPAIRS! (Okay, not really, but we have a home warranty for a reason...)

In the midst of all of this, it's nice that when things go wrong, it seems like a number of people have been very customer service oriented, which is very nice.

On to other topics. Very briefly, because this is way too long. I chopped off a ton of Micah's hair yesterday, so he looks so much older now. I did it a little too short, but you have to try and see what works sometimes, right? He's still a cutie, but he looks like a little boy now instead of a toddler. We have been playing tons of games (which I have been promptly losing). We got Qwirkle for Christmas, and Jason and I found the 5-6 player expansion AND Barbarians and Traders for Settlers of Catan for half price (score! - yes, I'm a huge dork when it comes to games). The kids have also started taking showers sometimes, and by this I mean that I take the sprayer off and squirt it on them while they scream with laughter. Lots of fun. Jason had a two-week break during Christmas, but he's back working now, so he leaves most days to find a Panera or Starbucks or some place with wireless so that he can do his job. I started working on Tuesday; I'll be working two hours on Mondays and two on Tuesdays, which is a good amount of time but not too much. And one hour each day is a flexible time, so I can work it whenever I want to. And Alex has learned to cross her eyes and snap.

And I am not tired of typing. :)

Moving Day

2011-12-03T14:19:00.001-08:00

We moved in last night, and as of this afternoon (Saturday), everyone actually has a pillow. That's a new thing. (We were using ones from the SP house.) I took two loads over to the apartment yesterday, some SP guys got the big stuff, and our new place is great.

And now it's Monday. We actually have most things put away, if not officially organized. It was enough so that I could actually vacuum the floors. We spent a ton of Saturday morning cleaning up, and then we spent quite a bit of time trying to do some more shopping for the apartment to get things like trash cans, converters, and an ironing board. (We finally found a decent one at a reasonable price at one of the neighborhood markets.) There are a number of markets here, but the one in our new neighborhood, Achumani, has prices that are way too high. That's where I tried to buy a bunch of stuff the other week and they tried to rip me off, so I walked away. However, another market in Irpavi seems to be a decent place to go. I found a small household stand with an honest woman who gave me decent prices, so I think I have found my market stall, even if I have to drive a little way to get there.

Shopping at the market isn't always cheaper, though. Part of me wonders if the buying power of supermarkets is going to end up driving markets out of business at some point. I can frequently find things in the supermarket for less than the market. Additionally, everyone tells me (and I have found from my experience) that as soon as they hear my speak they are going to hike up prices or not give me the best deal. When things are a simple, set price in the grocery store, there's no real reason for me not to shop there. The only exception will probably be fruits and vegetables, but otherwise I'll probably just shop at Ketal or Hypermaxi unless I go to the one woman in Irpavi.

We should get our furniture while we are gone, which has its benefits. As of right now all we have is a bed (the kids are sleeping on the floor) and a plastic table we're eating on. It works for a few days, but it will be great for the kisd to have beds, to have a few side tables, a real dining table, and a couch finally! What's going to be interesting is the color of the couch. I looked at the receipt over the weekend, and the color said chocolate. I ordered more of a stone brown color, MUCH lighter. We tried calling yesterday but no one answered, and things are so crazy today we don't think we can check on it, so the color might be a surprise. We'll see. I like the idea of the dark brown; I'm just afraid that it will end up showing fuzzies and stains. But then so will the lighter color; it all just depends on what gets on the couch, right?

The kids really like the apartment and are going to love their rooms I think, which are pretty large. Micah was taking a nap on Saturday while Alex and I were gone, and apparently Jason poked his head in the door and watched Micah very sneakily put on his monkey boots, very carefully pull the covers over him, and go to sleep. We have the pictures for proof!

No more for now. Today is insane because we have to get up at 3:00 in the morning tomorrow in order to be at the airport at 4:30. And we have a short flight with a short layover, and then we have an eleven. Hour. Flight. With small kids. I'm not quite sure what we're going to do for entertainment, but we'll work it out. We're almost there!

DING DING DING We have a winner!

2011-11-22T02:27:00.000-08:00

On the family side of things, my son is apparently a HUGE flirt. I had to take him with me to the school today to turn in some forms, and on the way out there was a group of girls in a circle (probably 2nd or 3rd grade) who saw Micah. They immediately asked if he was Alexis’ brother (so apparently people know Alex already) and started to say how cute he was. My son then proceeded to walk up to the circle of females and give each one of them a kiss. They all instantly fell in love, and my son is going to be dangerous… lol.

On the administrative side of things, drum roll, please…

We have a place to live.

HOORAY!

I really couldn’t have asked for a better place. Here are the details:
- 20 minute walk to the office for Jason (and that’s a little farther because when he measured it, he went by his favorite coffee shop)
- 4th floor, so it has a view, but there’s an ELEVATOR!
- very, very, very safe (along with everything else, it’s next door to the Belgian embassy)
- on a quiet block that is close to everything but also quiet; a small park with playgrounds on each side of the block
- electric gate (I don’t have to get in and out to open the gate whenever I go anywhere) and an extra storage space, too
- huge kitchen with lots of counter space and (hopefully) a place for a small table
- place for washing laundry and hanging it up, attached to maid’s quarters (small room with bathroom)
- large living/dining area
- huge master bedroom with walk-in closet and full bath, also space for office in there (oh, and did I mention that both bathtubs are Jacuzzi tubs? that is apparently a big thing here)
- two smaller rooms for the kids (one doesn’t have a closet, but we’ll use it as a bedroom), and they're not actually small; they're bigger than the kids' roooms at home
- another full bath in hall (although with a hugely awkward toilet that you can barely sit on because the shower is two inches from the front)
- huge other room with walk-in closet and full bath – we’ll use as a play room, for the kids main bathroom, and as a guest room when needed (this currently has navy blue teddy bear wallpaper in the entire room, but we can strip that and paint it for about $100)
- carpet in all the bedrooms
- already has overhead lighting everywhere and neutral curtains (this is actually really important because that saves us money to spend on other things that we need, including a range hood, which is probably going to cost us about $300 – crazy, huh?)

Overall, this place is everything we could ask for, and we think we’re going to be really happy here and won’t feel cramped or like we’ll need to move after a year. It’s been a little bit of a difficult month living in transition, but we should begin our lease on Dec. 1, and we think that we might be able to start moving some things next Monday (and possibly as early as Saturday; we’ll see about that.) It’s a great price for the location, and we’re all very happy. We just went to take another look at it and take some measurements, and both of the kids seemed very happy about moving there.

So city won. Kind of. It’s like a little oasis in the middle of the city.

Things will start moving very quickly now. Because SP takes care of a lot of things, things are slightly more difficult. (This isn’t anything bad; it just means that buying things for the home will take a bit longer.) However, tomorrow morning we’re going to go look at furniture and probably place a very large order. We are most likely going to buy most things at a place that makes very cool, simple wooden furniture. I was there on Saturday and like all the stuff, so almost all of the furniture except the couch will probably come from there. Hopefully Jason will be able to go with us for that, but we’ll see. In the afternoon I’ll probably head into downtown La Paz to get some household things like basic kitchen supplies, possibly a few nightstand lights, etc. We’ll also need to buy a refrigerator and oven because those don’t come with rentals here. (And of course, the range hood. Sadness due to it being so much money.) However, we’re going to get a gas stove (hooray) and might actually be able to take the refrigerator that’s in the house we’re currently living in. (We already have a washing machine.) Things are going to start being a lot busier around here, but that’s great because it means that we’re actually going to be in a place of our own, which will be wonderful.

Pictures

2011-11-17T12:14:00.000-08:00

Alexis' first progress report.

This might be the most disturbing assignment ever for a four-year-old. The frogs look way too friendly.

Micah has a need to close ALL doors. He doesn't like the fact that some of them don't stay closed here.

They got new chairs and LOVE them!

These will be my downfall. About a dollar for this box of bite-sized pastries. This is bad news for me.

Random Updates

2011-11-17T04:36:00.000-08:00

1. I just heard my son count to five in Spanish while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Maybe we'll get cable after all...

2. I made homemade tomoto sauce yesterday. I didn't have the ingredients I really wanted, but I tomatoes, oil, and onion powder. For only those three, it turned out really, really good. I guess it's kind of Italian style: fairly chunky and you're supposed to just coat the noodles in it. I think I'm going to make more today with better ingredients.

3. I saw a house the other day that could be really great for us. It's farther away than we wanted, but it looks like there's publich transportaion nearby and a place to park our car. The drawbacks (other than distance): spiral staircase, which I worry about with the kids, at least one kid would be on a different floor from us (this would make going to the bathroom in the middle of the night a little weird for Alex because she'd have to go up a flight of stairs if she was on a different floor), and it's actually pretty big, probably bigger than we need, making cleaning a potential challenge. (I'm still hoping for a maid, but the bigger the house, the more expensive that becomes.) Part of me is still really hoping that we can get that one apartment within walking distance. It would be so great in so many ways...

4. Alexis got her first progress report the other day and did EXCELLENTLY. I was so proud. She got goods in all of her "extras" like gym, etc., except for in art, where she got an excellent! And all of her "academic" stuff was perfect. I'll take a picture and post it if I get it back today.

5. Have I mentioned that I feel like my entire face has broken out during this process? I shouldn't have to battle zits and wrinkles and the same time; it's really not fair. On the flip side, though, my hair looks A-MA-ZING in this country. Low humidity I guess.

The Eternal Quest?

2011-11-09T07:09:00.001-08:00

Okay, so maybe that's me speaking a bit hyperbolically, but what can I say? It feels like we've been househunting for a long, long, long time. In reality, we've only been here a little over two weeks, and we didn't even see our first apartments until a few days after we arrived. It really hasn't been that long. I think we're just a bit disappointed in the dearth of options near the office where Jason is working. We'd really love for him to be able to walk to work, but we're not quite sure if that's going to happen.

There are two opposing viewpoints here. ONE: LIVE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY!!! Okay, so we could live in the middle of the south zone of the city, which has a neighborhood called San Miguel, whichis right next to Calacoto, where the office is. The benefit is that we would be close to everything. We could walk out of an apartment building and go a block to our favorite ice cream place, walk to get saltenas (my new favorite food - a slightly sweet, baked pastry dough filled with chicken or beef, potatoes, veggies, and spices), and basically have close access to everything. However, it would be like living in the middle of a city, constantly noisy, and we don't know if that would get old. On the flip side, we could live in the burbs, have less access to transportation (possibly having to take Jason to work every day or give him the car), and live in a tranquil setting, possibly with a view, and maybe even a house with a bit of green space. Oh, the dilemna. Oh wait: there's not much of a dilemna because there's NOTHING FOR US TO SEE! (We've had a few showings cancel on us.)

In reality, we have a good place to stay until we find where we want to move, and we can be here as long as we'd like to be, which takes the stress away. However, we're all ready to find a home, but we don't want to just move into something that's not going to good for us and we'll have to move out of a year later. So city or country? VOTE NOW!!!! (Not that we'll take into account your votes, but vote anyway!)

Micah is finally over his cold. He went on antibiotics to get rid of a cough, which was the only symptom of his cold. The cough wouldn't go away, so we spent 18 bucks on medicine. (Yikes, right?) The pricing thing is interesting here. TO give you a rundown of a few grocery store prices:

1 liter milk: $.90
1 pounf of chicken or beef: $3
1 box of Cheerios: $4
1 box of about a dozen small pastries of various types from Ketal, a grocery store here: $1 (These will be my downfall. They're bad, I tell you. BAD! But oh so good...)
six kiwis: $1 (this is at the grocery store; they're apparently a lot cheaper in the market, which I haven't been to yet)
1 saltena: $.65 (Now I want to go get these for lunch.)

Groceries aren't really cheaper for the most part, except for fruits and veggies. Some things are more expensive and we'll still buy sometimes (like CHeerios for the kids - I haven't found a generic version yet), but other things we'll give up completely. (I don't think I'll be buying any Nutella here.) Part of the experience though, right? One of the things that always cracks me up is when I'll see an import of something, like beverage sweetener, that in the states I woudl buy at the dollar store and here costs about four bucks. Always interesting, right?

Now let's review some of the differences:

1. I can take out my trash any day of the week. All I do is put in in a bag and take it to the curb outside of my house. How awesome is that?

2. There are no driving rules here. I mean, I know there ARE some rules, but there aren't many as far as I can tell. If you try to take a left turn, be prepared for cars to pull up on your left and your right and take the turn before you if you're not aggressive enough. I'm working on my agressive behavior. Honestly. Take THAT, PUNK DRIVERS! I'LL PASS YOU IF YOU'RE GOING SLOW!

3. They have this thing called your NIT, which took me a while to figure out. Whenever you buy something, you're supposed to either give your NIT number, which is your tax id number, or save your receipt. This is because sales tax isn't added, and the citizen is supposed to keep an account of all purchases so that they can pay the government the appropriate sales tax. I wonder how many people actually do this...

4. Milk comes in bags, just like in Managua. You can buy it in a box, but it's more expensive. It seems like I am constantly opening up bags of milk due to the two rugrats I have at home.

5. The dogs. The stupid, stupid dogs in our current neighborhood. I promise you it sounds like the beginning of a West Side Story rumble outside of our window at two in the morning. Maybe we can move somewhere without so many dogs that want to join gangs and disturb the peace of slumbering humans.

6. The playgrounds. When I asked Alexis what her favorite part of Bolivia was, she said school, and then she said playgrounds. Because almost everywhere you go out to eat, there's a playground. It's very nice for the adults.

7. The bathtubs. I know this isn't an across the board kind of thing, but every place that we've looked at (and some have been nice and some not so nice) had jacuzzi tubs in the bathrooms. Our hotel had it. Our current house has them. I never expected this to be a norm here considering Jason didn't even know if we were going to get a regular bathtub.

8. There's no sandwich bread. Not that there's any lunch meat or peanut butter anyway, but the sandwich bread that's available is all really tough. I have found some rolls that we're using for sandwiches and cooked a bunch of chicken and sliced it thinly for sandwiches, and I found some reasonable cheese. Put that on a roll with some avacado, and WALA! You have a sandwich.

Those are some of my observations thus far.

Jason is on his first trip to see one of the SP project locations. He'll be back tomorrow. While there's a lot involved (he is the "boss" after all), he's really enjoying his job so far, and the people are great. I'm trying to put myself out there with my Spanish and simply with trying to get stuff done, but I feel a bit in limbo until we get a home. The good news, though, is that there have been no problems with me working for Smarthinking while I've been here, so I can still continue with them. I'll have to figure out next semester's schedule soon, but it seems like it will still be a good fit. Especially if I can get Alex to always take an afternoon nap after school. (You're getting very sleepy, Alexis. You want to take a nap.)

Finally Some Pictures

2011-11-02T13:15:00.000-07:00

Yes, we finally have some pictures. The first two are pictures from the baclony of our hotel. Stunning, huh? The others are pictures of the SP house (including Jason's new office) and the views from there, and then we have a few of us just hanging around, including Alex and her first day of school. She was so excited to wear her Highlands t-shirt!The house only has the beds and the table for furniture right now, so we're hoping not to stay here for long. Yes, we do have some pictures of Micah, but Blogger kept failing on me. (I am remembering why I stopped publishing pictures here; it's way too complicated and time-consuming. I think the pictures are going to remain on Facebook for the most part!)

Alexis' First Day

2011-11-02T04:02:00.000-07:00

You know how I wrote that Alex was pretty shy when we went to go visit her classroom? Well, when I dropped her off at school yesterday, she greeted her teacher with a huge smile and went right in. She apaprently had a great day and really enjoyed herself, and we're really glad that we're sending her. It's just weird to have her gone every morning. We signed her up for the bus yesterday morning, and I was told that bus service would start on Thursday. (Wednesday is a holiday.) However, when I got to school, the classroom was empty. Everyone apparently thought that she was going to get on the bus. (I was also about five minutes late because the guy who was picking me up only thinks it takes five minutes to get to the school.) Anyway, we called Jason, who was there to greet Alexis at the door, and everything was fine. Her teacher said she had a perfect day and was really happy, so that made me really proud. She played in the sandbox and with playdough and house and other things and said she didn't learn anything because she already knew what they were learning. We also did her homework yesterday, and she got to go to the library, which was exciting for her. She REALLY wanted to get a book for Micah, which was sweet.

We also looked at another apartment yesterday, which was great in a lot of ways but was only two bedrooms, and we decided that we really want the kids to have their own rooms. It's going to be worth it to us for them to each have private space when they want it. The search continues! There's one place that might be coming available sometime soon, but we'll have to see. Apparently it's a little dumpy at the moment but will be fixed up, and it's in the middle of everything, which is good and bad. It's supposed to get a ton of light, which helps keep the apartment warm, and it's the perfect location for Jason walking to work. It is, however, just like being in the middle of a city, which is a little crazy.

We went out for dinner and ice cream last night and had lomo saltado, a very typical dish of grilled beef, tomoatoes, and onions over french fries and served with rice. It was awesome. And, of course, there was a playground for the kids, which they love. Then we went out for more ice cream (not as good as Sunday, but it was two for one day). It was the first time I think I really got a feel for living in a city, though. Walking around at twilight and then when it was dark made me think of being in New York with tons of people around and everything open and tiny stores and massive traffic. Not everything in our area is like that, but there's this oval inside of a street called Montenegro that makes you feel like you're in downtown La Paz. (Not that I've been to downtown La Paz yet... It's just how I imagine it would feel. We're in Zona Sur, the southern area.) Being able to walk to stuff is very cool except that the kids keep wanting us to carry them, which gets pretty old.

Today is a holiday - Day of the Dead - so there's barely any traffic and the office is closed, so it's probably going to be a great day for us to get in teh car as a family and do a little bit of exploring while the roads are fairly empty. To the grocery store!

First Week

2011-10-31T17:11:00.000-07:00

We’ve been in La Paz for almost a week now, and in some ways it already feels like home. In other ways it feels like we’re simply fumbling along, though!  It’s been a great week. We got a lot of rest by being at the hotel, and it really helped with the transition to have a place where everything was taken care of, we didn’t have to worry about cleaning, and was incredibly nice. We left there on Friday morning, when I proceeded to rush out the door and forget one of your bags. (Yes, I felt really bad about that. What is it with me and not getting all the bags? This one was behind a door when I did the final check, and I couldn’t bring it out before leaving because it was huge and blocked the entire hallway.) However, all was resolved and we arrived at the Samaritan’s Purse house, which is right next door to the main office. In a number of ways that is an ideal place: Jason’s office is downstairs (as well as some other cubes in a huge room), it’s spacious, it has HUGE closets, there’s a great little yard, etc. In other ways, though, it’s not the best: really slippery (thus dangerous) floors, fairly choppy, Jason’s office is downstairs… (There are good things and bad things about that.) Ultimately, though, we can’t stay here. The former director lived here, but then they decided to start using it more as office and guest space, and apparently the lease might be up next summer anyway. Regardless, we can’t stay here.

SO BEGINS THE HOUSE SEARCH! So far it’s not very promising. We’d really like something where Jason could walk to work and it not take 30 minutes, or at least he could take a trufe, which is a small van/bus/taxi type of transportation. We looked at two apartments on Tuesday evening. The first was actually really amazing: spacious rooms, great for entertaining (and since Jason is the director, part of me is thinking that we need a place where we can invite people), beautiful floors, and way out of our current price range. There were two other drawbacks. First, it was being rented furnished, which means that we would be responsible of the kids (or me) destroyed anything. Second, one of the bedrooms was set up with a huge built-in bookshelf and desk, which is great if you want an office but bad if you need a kid’s room. So that was off the list for a number of reasons. The second place was farther away but next to an amazing kid’s park. However, when we entered the apartment, I think we both knew it was just wrong. It was in horrible shape. Not that we need anything luxurious, but this had massive cracks and needed to be painted all over and there was mold all over the bathrooms, one of the tubs was actually blocked by the door and a wall so there was NO ventilation or light, pretty gross kitchen, and one of the rooms had a smoker in it, and I doubt that smell would ever completely come out. Needless to say, we passed on that one as well.

What’s a little disappointing is that the newspaper had basically nothing for us to look at. We were thinking that we would find at least some possibilities to look at from the weekend paper, but there was one apartment that was $300 a month (there’s no way that’s in any shape for us to want to live in at that low of a price), and the other one has a great location but is only two bedroom, and we’d really like at least three. Apparently there was one house at a great price that was a little farther away than desired but still worth seeing, but as soon as we found out about it it was gone. We might have something to look at tomorrow, but I’m not sure. Part of us would still really like a house for a number of reasons, but there are a lot of other issues that come with that, like a gardener, security, etc. So the housing search is still on in a major way, although we’ve only really had minor results. It’s great to have a place to stay while we’re looking, though, and while we’d like something sooner as opposed to later, we can wait a little while. Hopefully not too long, though.

We spent most of the weekend unpacking and trying to get organized a little bit. It seems weird to unpack when we’ll just have to pack up again, but it actually helps to organize everyone’s stuff and get out of the way things that we’re not using at the moment. Last week was also nice because people from SP took care of lunch for us, so today was the first time we actually had to fend for ourselves for lunch. What’s amazing here is that there are SO many places, including nice ones, that have play areas for kids. Some of them are huge playgrounds, some of them are just small areas, but a lot of stuff is really kid-friendly, to the point that 1. Sometimes there is even a person who works for the restaurant that watches the kids in the play area, and 2. When we went to get ice cream last night, Micah started looking around for the play area. It was really great not to have to worry about lunches at all, but it was also really nice last night to be in our “own” – albeit temporary – place and have a meal around a table the other night. The people here have been so helpful and friendly, and it has made the transition a lot easier.

Alex will also start attending school Tuesday. It’s a little weird to think about, but while I’m sure it will be hard for her in many ways, I’m also pretty confident that she’s going to love it. She met her teacher and was a little shy at first (this is pretty normal right now – things have been a little overwhelming), but then she brightened up and was playing in the room. She now has a Highlands t-shirt to wear for her uniform for now until we get her some other polo shirts, and tomorrow she’ll start going to school every day. So different. Alexis is also feeling MUCH better. She’s over her laryngitis and only has a cough sometimes, but that’s more of an adjustment to the climate than anything else.

On the other end of the spectrum, Micah has been unbelievably exuberant. He just smiles at everyone and is smiling and dancing and laughing and wants people to pick him up and overall is interacting with almost anyone who will pay attention to him. He has already made some favorite friends amongst the SP staff. While Alexis is taking a little longer to warm-up (it’s more overwhelming for her, and being sick didn’t help), Micah is full-speed ahead. It’s pretty awesome to see how captivating he is.

Life has been busy and will continue to be busy, but this is what we expected. We went to the English-speaking church yesterday and there was a potluck after the service, so it was nice to be able to meet some people there. While I’m pretty sure that we’ll go to a Spanish-speaking church most of the time, it’s nice to be connected with the missionary community down here. I don’t think it’s nearly as large as the one in Managua, but sometimes it will be nice to have some community that speaks English.
Today was also Jason’s first full day of work. The family went this morning because he led devotions, and while I don’t understand a lot of it, the parts that I did get were really great. He made people laugh and engaged them in a number of different ways, and I was really proud of him. Today it’s been all meetings for him, so he is right in the middle of it and getting to work, which is sometimes I admire him for doing.

That’s it for now. I’m going to drive Alexis to school tomorrow (someone from SP will be in the car with me) since I need to go there to sign a bus contract for her, we might have an apartment to look at tomorrow, at some point soon I’ll have a cell phone (I don’t want to drive without one), and we’re ready to really get started!

The Purple Bane

2011-10-26T03:38:00.000-07:00

(I promise they won't all be this long, but I know a lot of you were interested in the actual trip.)

We have arrived in La Paz, hooray!

We flew out of DC early Monday evening. Reagan is one of the few airports to do international curbside check-in, and it was well worth a tip to be able to pull the cars to the curb, unload them, and not have to try and drag them through an airport line. We have eight bags. Eight filled-to-the-max bags. And we each had a carry-on. And a personal item. We had a lot of stuff.

The only incident in DC was when they had to unload our bright purple carry-on. (Due to the fact that we try to abide by the rules, we had to get a new carry-on at the last minute. And they had a purple one. So it became Alexis' future luggage.) Anyway, there was something ball-like that was suspicious to them in the purple bag, and LO AND BEHOLD it was a globe. A small globe that spins whenever there is light around. And it has a small layter of fluid between the globe and the material covering the globe that doesn't come out. And it's really, really cool, and it's fragile so we wanted to take care of it. And there's liquid and we did not even think about it. So it is now gone. (This was actually a Christmas present to Jason from my father, and he's really bummed about it.)

However, that's the only thing that has been lost in transit so far, and that was our fault. We ate a little bit of dinner before the flight to Miami, and the kids were great. I don't think the take off and landing bothered either of them much, but I was stuffing craisins into their mouths on the first take off in case they had ear issues. It was actually really great to just spend time with the kids in the airport and on the flight because things have been so crazy that we haven't had a lot of time to just hang out.

And while the globe is the only thing left in transit, we almost lost the entire purple bag. I will take the blame for this one. I was getting three personal items and checking to make sure we didn't leave anything behind, and Jason asked me to get the purple bag. However, I heard a flight attendant ask if she could help, and I thought she was getting the bag. Apparently, though, she had fallen in love with my daughter and was walking her out in her arms! We got out of the gate and did a bag check and realized we were missing the purple one. I rad back and got it, fortunately, but that would have been bad news! (This is why we occasionally did checks to make sure we had everything.)

By the time we landed in Miami it was about 8:30, and we had to walk quite a ways to the next gate. This is where it started to get hard because the kids were tired. The walk throught the airport was fairly hard, but we got to our gate, gave the kids a small snack, and proceeded to go through the most confusing boarding process ever. We got to go in early on the first flight, which was nice, but on the second flight they kept switching which line we were supposed to be in and had too many lines open, etc. Everyone was really nice and didn't understand why we couldn't board first, though. We got on board, though, and a fellow passenger helped Jason with some of the luggage. (We did, after all, have three rolly pieces. In the first flight I pushed one ahead and pulled one behind, but this flight was too narrow to do that.) We got situated and took of about 45 minutes late, and the kids fell asleep instantly. Micah slept almost the entire time. Alex did too except for the fact that her sleep was interrupted because she was sick. She lost her voice on MOnday morning before we left, she started to feel a little warm to us while we were on the first flight, and by the middle of the night she was burning up. We both prayed for her and her fever went down, which was great, but she has been coughing really tired and throwing up a little bit. (This could be due to altitude as well. She threw up right after we landed.)

We got through all of the customs and visa processes without a problem, which is great, and then we met the SP guys who loaded up our stuff, dropped off some of it at the office/house they have, and took us to our hotel.

La Paz is awesome. We got into the airport, which is REALLY high, and drove El Alto and other parts of the city into Zone Sur, which is where Calacoto is. Calacoto is the really nice area of the city and where SP's office is. The drive down was spectacular. There are tons of mountainous crags all over the place, so while I'll miss forests, the landscape is truly unique. I could see the temperature rising on the thermostat in teh car as we would drive further down.

You really do have to take it easy, though. When I got off the plane I felt a little dizzy. Micah just wanted to run around after we got off the plane, and it was really funny because he kept falling down. It's a little harder to keep him calm, but he is feeling fine it appears. Our day was busier than I anticapted yesterday, but we got a tour of the city and SP's office (and met a lot of the staff), the school Alex will go to, and a lot of other places. We also had lunch at the acting director's house, where I proceeded to fmuble through my limited Spanish, Alex slept on a couch the entire time, and Micah went about capturing hearts, which is his normal M.O. We got back to the hotel around 3 and rested for a while. Later in the afternoon I actually went out to the grocery store, which in many ways reminded me of Nicaragua. We are drinking milk out of a bag again and having to use bottled water, and we'll also have to remember to stop flushing toilet paper! And last night we put the kids to bed early, ordered room service pizza, and we were in bed at 8:00. That was really, really nice.

Alex woke up a few times during the night with coughing fits, and she threw up this morning, although that could be due to the altitude. One of the SP employees is a pediatrician, though, and she's going to come over and check out Alex to make sure she's okay. Jason's going to go look at some apartments this morning to see if we can find something within walking distance of his office. Alex should be able to take the bus to school, but we do have a car to use while we're here: a 2006 blue Rav4. (That's lind of exciting to me.)

So that's the wrap-up of our first 24 hours in La Paz. We're acclimating and will start to get situated soon.

UPDATE:: Alexis has laryngitis (this started on Monday before we ever got here) and is a little low on oxygen. We got an x-ray of her lungs this morning ($10!!!) just to make sure that she was okay, which she is, and she's taking some ibuprofen and will get a little bit of axygen for a few days.

Vacations

2011-09-06T13:06:00.000-07:00

We did a "staycation" this year with the kids. Yes, I know the name is lame. No, I'm not making apologies for it. Jason had a week off and we took that Monday and Tuesday to hang out with the kids. On Monday we went to the Reston Zoo; it's part petting zoo, part random animals, and part hayride. The kids LOVED it! They've been before, but they had a blast feeding the goats and the ducks. We even got them milk bottles for the sheep! This is the same place we went to about a year ago where the emu ate Alexis' shorts. (She still talks about it.) On Tuesday, the day of the earthquake, we took the kids to Splashdown, a waterpark nearby. They were totally fascinated! Alexis had no fear and went down (age-appropriate) slides with no fear and wanted to do everything she could. Micah loved it but had to figure things out for a little bit first. His favorite part was the water shooting out from the ground in the shallow pools. Seriously, he was fascinated by this and played with this for over and hour total. We were also able to take both of them on the lazy river, and they enjoyed that. It was really just a fun time together.

Jason and I did get to go on a vacation just the two of us while the parents watched the kids, which was AMAZING! We went back to the first B&B we visited on our honeymoon and hung out in Staunton and saw The IMportance of Being Earnest (my fav play) and ate awesome food and just had a great time.

Excitement Abounds. For One Child.

2011-08-09T05:43:00.000-07:00

We went to a place called House of Bounce yesterday. It's a big room that has blow up slides you have to climb up to, and you bounce around and different things. I dont' know how to describe them if you've never seen them, but if you have kids, you probably know what I'm talking about. Alexis was fearless. Micah? Not so much. We were there a little over an house (Alex got tired after that), and Micah spent almost the entire time clutching to my arms if we tried to do something. It made it very tiring for me, but still lots of fun. We spent a reasonable amount of time watching ALex go down one of the slides while MIcah just at in my lap. He was pretty overwhelmed. But Alex just went right in and did it all, which was really fun to watch.

We've been working with her on being more involved when she does things and telling us about them afterwards. (For some reason she never wants to tell us details about different activities that she does.) We went to the Smithsonian a few weeks ago, and she spent most of the time being really uninvolved, which was very disappointing. I mean, it's the Smithsonian! We're working on that. She did go to music camp last week, and she had a show on Friday morning that was so cute! She sang with the other kids, although I ended up being only a few feet from her and served as a distraction for her at times! It was a thirty minute show, and towards the end she started to step back and just watch all the other kids and not really want to sing, but overall she did a great job and we have some really cute videos of her singing and doing motions.

Micah got stung by a bee at the playground the other day, and when we brought him home at one point he was saying really, really fast over and over again "go away bee go away go away bee go away go away bee go away" while shaking his head to get it off his ear. It was so sad but so funny all at the same time. He's completely fine though. He is actually starting to recognize some colors now.

Oh, and Alex is officially beginning the reading process I think in that we sat down with some three-letter words and were working on sounding out the letters and putting them together. She's getting so old!

I DID It!

2011-08-03T12:55:00.000-07:00

"I DID it!" This is Micah's current favorite phrase. Whenever he does something that he thinks we should notice? "I DID it!" Whenever he climbs the steps up to the house all on his own? "I DID it!" Whenever he sits in his carseat doing not much of anything? "I DID it!" We've had to have a little talk about professing your proud expertise when you really didn't actually DO anything... It's a work in progress. In the meantime, it's currently my favorite thing that he says.

Reading

2011-07-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

Alexis: We are currently reading Charllote's Web to her. She got REALLY into a Frog and Toad book that we got at the library the other week, so I actually found the collection at the used bookstore. She has gotten really excited about chapter books, so I want to foster that in her. However, our next library choice was a BAD one. I got the first two Junie B. Jones books, and this girl is one massive brat without any redeeming qualities. I read the first one to her on Sunday afternoon and was having some issues with it, and Jason started reading the next one to her, and we both decided that there would be no more Junie B. Jones in our home. Long live Ramona, if I could not just find all of my old copies... I checked the first two out at the library, though, for when we finish wastching Charlotte's Web. I'm hoping this really starts to kick a desire to read in gear. She's been doing a great job with some workbooks about figuring out which letter begins which word, and she's starting to write some words, and I want to teach her some sight words. We'll see how it goes! (I tried the sight words a month or two ago and they didn't take, so I'll wait a little longer and see. No pressure or anything.)

Micah: His current bedtime favs are Goodnight Moon, Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaur, and Inch by Inch. We started reading Inch by Inch about a week ago, and for some reason he thought it was really, really funny. Maybe because I pretended to try to gobble him up like the bird threatens to thr inchworm in the book. Regardless, he was laughing really hard at each page. Until last night, when for some reason when Jason was reading to him he decided that the ultimate reading experience for him would be to pretend to grab the inchworm on each page and eat him up! Then Jason would tell him that he needed to spit it out, so Micah would pretend to spit the worm out so that he could grab and swallow again. Jason told me about it this morning. So cute!

Micah at Two

2011-07-20T04:28:00.000-07:00

34 inches and 25 pounds. Even his doctor said that he's going to catch up to Alex pretty soon. All was fine with his appointment, except for the fact that he decided to cry and be afraid of Dr. Theodore for some unknown reason. Maybe he thought he was getting a shot.

Micah thoroughly enjoyed his birthday presents and said "wow" when he opened them, especially his Handy Manny tool bench. He loves the noises it makes, and overall it was a big hit. He was also obsessed with this sticker book I got for him and sat in my lap three nights in a row until he had finished most of it. (This ended up being an awesome gift because it cost about 15 cents at the library.) He also enjoyed his cupcake and literally face-planted into the icing, which was the main part he was concerned with. It made a mess, but what is a birthday for?

No More Babies

2011-07-17T17:26:00.001-07:00

If I thought there was even a slight tinge of babyishness surrounding Micah, I would probably want to grab it and hold onto it. That is not, howevever, the case. In the least.

My son turns two today.

And he is very much a kid, not a baby. He wants to do everything Alex does, which means that he wants to do TONS of things that he is way to young to do. He copies her and looks up to her and wants to be big like her, which means that he does things like make his bed in the morning and puts his dishes in the sink when he's done, but it also means that he thinks he should be able to write letters like she can and brush his teeth by himself. It's a mixed bag...

He is definitely amazing, though. In the past few weeks I really feel like he's starting to work out how to work through his frustration. He knows that we won't tolerate him throwing fits, and he is resorting to them less frequently and, even when he does try to erupt into crying, he is letting go if it much more quickly and finiding that life is much better when he chooses to be happy instead of sad. I'm amazed at how much he knows right now, too. As of him being two right now, he knows all of his capital letters, most of his lowercase letters, numbers 1-10, and shapes. he can also not only count to ten and try to say the alphabet, but he understands the concept of counting and what it is, so he'll actually try to count objects sometimes.

I also have an incredibly affectionate son who loves to be in a lap having his back scratched or simply lying down in your lap. Unless he's on the move, that is. I'm going to miss when he no longer has his little toddler run, but for now he still have the cutest way of moving throughout his life: at full speed with a little bit of bouncing to his cheeks and a soundtrack to accompany said bouncing. Another of his latest obessions? Playing tag with his sister, although Alex only wants to play about half the time. He still loves playing hide and seek and will get behind a chair in the living room, count to ten (from three about half the time) and then burst out, saying "HERECOME!" before trying to find someone. His favorite book right now is Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs, and he laughs at every page, especially the page where they are singing a dinosaur song and we sing the text to him. He has this way of bursting into laughter recently that cracks me up so much. It's not that it's less natural than it used to be, it's almost like the laughter has built up inside of him and he has to let it out with a guffaw. For a while baths were a nightmare, but he now seems to have recovered from whatever trauma he experienced with water and is now mostly back to normal when taking baths. (He still doesn't like his head to be wet and would never volunteer to put his head in the actual bath like Alex did, but as long as he's not screaming, I'm content for now.)

He is also starting to be fairly polite and will frequently say please and thank you without any sort of prompts. I was pretty proud of him, too, because my parents were here taking care of me and the kids for a few days while I was recovering from sinuplasty, and Micah was behaving pretty well and listening to my parents when they told him no. He was also fairly gentle with the kitten that they brought with them, whish was fun to see.

More birthday updates later since it's five in the morning. We're not doing a party for him, but after his nap today we'll open a few presents and have some cupcakes. (And he BETTER be excited about cupcakes because he always wants to talk about this favored form of dessert...)

An Addition

2011-06-23T13:59:00.000-07:00

I forgot to add this last time, and it's too cute not to include. A few days ago, Micah randomly started to "act" for Guapo. He first started it by making him talk to me and wave his hand. Then he had Guapo ask for a kiss and hug, and he started to make him pray when we pray with him at night. He'll also have Guapo throw up a high five to you if you ask. Cuteness defined.

Letters and Numbers

2011-06-20T06:11:00.000-07:00

Micah is officially counting to ten! It's very cute, and he does a really good job with it on a regular basis. The only problem, however, is that he almost always starts with the number three. :) What's really cool, though, is watching him point to objects and count them one at a time. He gets the whole counting concept. He is also trying to sing the alphabet, which is cool, and does a pretty good job with that, too. (When I say a pretty good job, I mean that I can figure out what he's saying because I'm his mom...) His newest thing to learn is shapes, and he's starting to recognize some of the basic ones. Hooray for learning!

FOr some reason, he's been pretty anti-veggie lately, which makes for some interesting meal times. It's hard to believe he's almost two, though. In the past week he has started to walk down the stairs by holding the railing and doing it like a big kid. Micah also slept in a sleeping bag for the first time last week. We stayed at my parents house, and the kids slept in the guest room together. The only real problem was that both of the kids needed to poop right after I put them to bed, so that was a bit disruptive, but after a few minutes Micah settled down and they both went to sleep. Also, after wanting to play for a few minutes at Nanny's house, they both went to sleep pretty readily in their sleeping bags. Granted Micah was out of his sleeping bag and on the floor in the morning, but there were no problems. NO MORE PACK AND PLAY!!!

I've been working a little bit with math with Alexis, and she has started wtih some sight words, and I have a small list of some things I want to review with her this summer. And then she's off to preschool in the fall. It seems so weird, although it's a little less odd since she'll only be gone two mornings a week. I think she's really going to love it, though.

They've also been having a ton of fun with everyone visiting the past few weeks. It has been VERY busy around here recently, mostly being able to see old friends from Lee. The kids fall in love with everyone, which is pretty awesome, and it's great to have kids who are so friendly and engaging with strangers. It's also VERY cool that on this Monday morning the kids are roaming around the house together. Alex is leading Micah in a very cool way (not bossy at all right now) around the house and encouraging him to play with her. This means that I just got to exercise and am now typing this blog post out without worrying about kids. Very cool.

Alex Independence

2011-06-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to the part with some friends who were in town. They brought along their golden retriever, and while in the fields at the park, Alexis took Ava for a walk all by herself. She also got a kite to fly twice all by herself. She was adorable, running along the path with us watching in the distance, leading the dog and later on flying the kite. Those are the kind of moments that stick with you and make you realize that your kids are truly growing up.

A Good Day

2011-05-30T15:16:00.000-07:00

Today is Memorial Day, and we ended up having some old friends over for brunch. We met their two kids, hung out, and just generally had a great time. We also just got in from spending almost two hours in the backyard, which might be a record for us in one sitting. We played in theie little kiddie pool and then had hot dogs and sausages with homemade chili and watermelon. Very stereotypical, right? It was a great day, even though Micah REALLY doesn't want to sit in the water. He did, however, want to spend an hour pouring water into a cup. I wish I could be entertained that easily...

First, Alexis. Her fourth birthday party was awesome. We invited her friends over and EVERYONE came, which we didn't expect but was awesome. We scheduled it for 10-11 on a Saturday morning, and basically they all played downstairs int he ball pit and then came upstairs to have some cake after singing happy birthday to her. Jason's favorite moment was when everyone was singing to her, and she was so delighted that she got shy and started hiding her face in her daddy's legs. It was adorable. I made her a butterfly cake and a maardvark cake, which were both a hit, especially the maardvark cake. I am never again, though, making two birthday cakes and decorating them for this girl. We asked people not to bring presents because we're really trying to prevent her from going into overload with presents, but a number of friends made their own cards and brought them to her, which I thought was really, really nice. It was a good time. She also got a free meal at Red Robin, one of her favorite restaurants, and the staff sang to her and brought her ice cream, and she got a free meal at Chick-fil-a and one of the managers came and brought her a little "eat more chicken" cow. Overall, she had a great birthday and got lots of presents from family that she is enjoying a lot.

Alex is recently doing a really great job writing letters, so we've written a few notes to people. I tell her how to spell, and she writes it. She's been dealing in capital letters and I've wanted to move on to lowercase letters soon, and that was affirmed by a friend at church who works as a reading specialist who has to get kids to unlearn writing words in all caps. I know what's on my agenda for this week.

Micah is our boy of despair. If he doesn't get his way, he despairs. If someone takes something from him, he despairs. If he doesn't want to eat, he despairs. (Okay, so I am speaking hyperbolically. Kind of.) He is so happy when he's happy, but when he is sad (and he's teething and had a cold before that), he is miserable. It takes quite a bit of patience, but time outs seem to be helping some.

However, he does know his alphabet. He confuses v for y and z for s, but otherwise he's prety accurate most of the time. It's cool because I can just point at a letter and he says the name instead of me getting him to choose the correct letter. We'll start working on lowercase letters soon, but I'm pretty proud of him for his uppercase letters. He is also trying to count and knows numbers 1-5 pretty well and a few others, but not consistantly yet. He also tries to sing the alphabet song and count, both of which are really cute. He doesn't know colors or shapes yet, but we're working on those. He does, however, know most body parts, which is pretty cool.

Also, about a week and a half ago we switched him to a toddler bed, and he did an AWESOME job. I think he has seen hers and was excited about it, and we've really had very few problems with it. That's really nice in the midst of his other crankiness.

It is now family pie time (where we sit down and eat some pie, exactly what it sounds like), so that's it for now.

The Zoo

2011-04-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

We went to the national zoo today. It was the first time in a LONG time, and it was Micah's first time at all. Alex had been sick this weekend with a fever, so she was actually pretty tired while we were there. She still enjoyed it, though. Micah LOVED it! The only problem is that he ALWAYS wanted to be out of the stroller walking around, and sometimes he needed to stay IN the stroller. However, with Amber's help (an old friend from college who was in the area), we kept the two kids happy and fed and excited. The crowning moment, though, was when Micah walking around in the small mammal house. (I've discovered that smaller, scurrying animals are more entertaining than large, immobile animals.) Micah put his face right up to the glass and saw a golden-tailed tamarin, which has always been one of my favorite animals at the zoo. For some reason, this tamarin decided that my son was IT and jumped down directly onto the glass right in front of Micah's face to pounce on him and then run away again. Micah thought it was the most hysterical thing he had ever experienced and kept jumping up and down over and over again. It was a long, but good, morning. The journey out there can get a little long because it's the city, but it's worth it. We actually became FONZ members today as a family, meaning that I can park for free anytime that I go! The zoo is free, but parking is a bit expensive, so this makes it easier to think about going for shorter periods of time. Plus, the kids get free animal crackers every time they go!

Speaking of jumping, this is Micah's new favorite activity. He just jumps ALL of the time around the house until he falls down and then gets up and does it again. This kid catches more air than I do!

Micah's Development

2011-03-22T05:12:00.000-07:00

Micah continues to amaze me, and I think I have to thank Alex for a lot of that. His vocabulary just seems huge to me, especially when I think about how few words Alex said at this age. I know I've mentioned that once or twice (or a hundred times) before, but it's crazy to me how he just says a word because he's mimicking someone or he sees someone doing something. FOr instance, he just saw Alex dancing and said "dance", which I've never heard him say before. So incredibly cool. He's also VERY into pretending right now, especially pretending to be asleep. We've created two little monsters who both think you're supposed to roar at someone to wake him up! It's pretty funny.

However, the main thinkg right now is that Micah has started to use the potty. AT 20 MONTHS! How cool is that? He is by NO MEANS potty-trained at all, but apparently while Alex and I were gone this weekend, something clicked for him. Jason was telling Micah that he was using the potty, and Micah got really excited and started to say POTTY POTTY POTTY! SO Jason got his potty out of the closet, and Micah sat down and used it. How cool is that? This was on a Saturday. On Sunday Jason told me this sotry when I got home, and I asked Micah if he used the potty, and Micah said POTTY POTTY POTTY, went upstairs, and used the potty. No joke.

Yesterday he used the potty four times. For real.

Unfortunately, he can't even pull his pants down yet. But he gets the concept! It will take him a long time before he's actually potty-trained, but if he wants to try, I'll certainly let him.

Alex and I had a great time visiting friends this weekend. Micah was sick, so he and Jason had to stay home. However, I think Alex enjoyed being without Micah for a while. She kept wanting to hold our friends' two-month-old baby and had a blast playing with her Uncle Kyle's old toys, including a Wonder Woman figure that she became quite attached to. She got a huge kick out of being able to choose some special things like a gourmet chocolate, and we went to this HUGE indoor playgound/ballpit,jungle gym/bouncy place called Ballocity. She was so much smaller than most fo the other kids, but she just WENT for it and had a blast inside. It was also adorable when we visited Kyle's church. She loved the SUnday school and apaprently enjoyed being a hlper and speaking into the microphone, and she is in love with Kyle and insisted onholding onto his hand when he was done praying with people up front. (He's a pastor and was speaking that morning.) It was adorable.

And the big news is that Alex is officially going to preschool next year. She's in a program at a church right around the corner from our house, which is really nice, and she'll be there two days a week for about three hours. And get this: IT'S FREE! Yes, we had another option that was a great price, but it was five days a week, a little more than I really wanted to send her right now. Plus, now we'll have some money to do other special things with her!

Updates - Very Brief Paragraphs

2011-03-10T06:12:00.001-08:00

Micah:

Micah is saying dozens of words, which continues to astound me. One of his latest is help. That's actually very helpful (no pun intended) simply because he can let me know when he needs help doing something, and I think it's creating a little less frustration on his part. He has no problem picking up words, and I've watched him trying to put two words together. He is also doing better at identifying some of his body parts, although he certainly gets them wrong fairly frequently. He has some of them down, though. For example, he loves to say hair for some reason. He eats well and has a smile that lights up the room with one huge dimple on the left side of his face. He is also really into grabbing people's hands and saying hand when he wants to lead you somewhere or have you take him down the steps. He does this to people he doesn't know, too. These days he's waking up at about 6:30 in the morning, but we'll see if the time change coming up helps keep him quiet longer. Who knows?

Alex:

Alexis has entered a whiney stage, which is not fun. We're working a lot on how to express herself in an appropriate tone of voice. We're also actively working on manners a lot, and she's getting pretty good at saying excuse me to interrupt people. Now we're working on when it's an appropriate time to actually do that, and if she's anything like me, she'll never learn that lesson completely... her tracing skills are getting prety good, and she's doing a better job writing letters. However, one of the things she's gotten REALLY good at is determining what letter a word starts with, and that's very cool to see her develop that skill.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

2011-01-15T01:23:00.000-08:00

That's for you, mom, because my son is a jabberwocky. He just jabbers and jabbers and jabbers and jabbers and jabbers and jabbers... You get the point. It's so weird to watch the language development because Alex was so slow with it, but part of me thinks he'll be a lot slower in putting words together to form sentences. We shall see. It's hard to think that he'll be at the level that she was when she was two, but that is six months from now, and six months in toddler world is like eighteen years for the rest of us. He likes to volunteer lots of words and now that he has mastered the old favorites, like sit, he likes to use new ones, like sock. That's one of his most recent favorites. He has also mastered going down the stairs. He's not walking down, but he's scooting down on his but, so one of his favorite things to do is play up and down. (Alex created that name.) They both go up and down the steps and then play on the landing while bursting out from one side to scare me. Micah is totally enamored with this new freedom. Me? It kind of freaks me out a little bit, but he's very stable and I've got to let him go sometime. And on a random note, he now LOVES brushing his teeth. I don't know when this transition took place, but he's all into getting up on the little stool and letting me do it and then trying to do it on his own.

We got rid of his high chair a few weeks ago, so now he's just using his booster seat. I've also finally been able to get him to delay eating dinner, at least most of the time, so that we can all eat together as a family. This is really, really nice. Another nice thing is that he's sleeping later. He got into some bad sleeping habits over Christmas, so finally I just started letting him cry again when he woke up at 5:30, and now he's usually sleeping until almost seven with no tears in the early morning. Hooray!

Christmas was so much fun. I think I had my first true parental delight in getting presents ready for the kids. We moved the coffee table out of the way and created piles for the kids' presents, complete with stockings for both. Micah got this huge letter train that I got at a yard sale, and we put a blanket on top of it and let him pull it off. Then, after she had opened all of her other presents, we told Alex she had to go looking for her last present. It was in a huge bag in the basement in the middle of the floor, and she got a kick out of that! It was her shopping cart, and we spent quite a while with the kids playing with their new toys with the fireplace going. We did all of this on Christmas Eve, including taking Alex to the doctor because her ear was hurting. I'm really glad it happened before we left town. We actually picked up her medicine on the way out.

And of course they got tons of toys that they loved. Some of the favorites? Alex got lots of craft stuff that we've been working our way through. That's not exactly an instant satisfaction toy, but she's beeb loving using all of her supplies. I think her favorite among those has to be these collages that Uncle Jason got for her that create little animals. If I can ever get her to let go of them, we want to put them on her walls when she's done with the set. She also keeps wanting to make the Crayola cookies that Aunt Jen and Uncle Keith got her, but we're waiting on that for when we don't have any more Christmas junk food in the house. She also has gotten really into putting wooden beads that she got into the lunchbox that she got and carrying them around the house and arranging them. And while she can't follow the directions yet, she loves the little piano she got that has a book of songs that go with it to play by numbers. One of Micah's instant favorites was a wooden toy that comes with a hammer and balls. You hammer the balls down and then they roll out again. It was instant obsession, and I thought he was going to break the glass in the door when he was playing with it. He seriously just confiscated the thing, took it over to an area, and started whamming it to pieces. It might be my favorite Christmas moment of the season. He was also very excited about the bouncy ball that he got and kept trying to throw all over my grandparents' house, and he loves his laptop, especially the button that makes the donkey noise. Over and over and over and over. And the dump truck. ANd the list could go on for both of them. However, it makes me happy that some of their favorite toys are also things we got for them. For Alex, her shopping cart and Uno Moo, which is a great game! For Micah, his alphabet train.

And they both discovered their devotion to ham. Being part Martin, it was bound to happen.

The snow the day after Christmas in NC was wonderful. It was about nine inches I think, and if Alex hadn't had an ear infection, she would have loved going out in it. Fortunately, the snow didn't delay our schedule, and we were able to get home on Monday night.

Alexis continues to amaze me with her appropriate use of words like fragile and apparently. Her neverending desire for interaction is making us think it's time to explore some more activities options for her. We're looking into come classes at our community center, although they don't have enough people signing up for classes to make, so I'm hoping that will change in the future. But they offer all sorts of things, including swimming, which might be good for her to have. Manassas offers a pre-ballet class, which she might enjoy, but Id have to get her some gear for that. We're just looking for some reasonably-priced options that would help develop some interests and have her interacting in a different way with teachers and kids. And while we're not going to do it this year, we're seriously considering preschool for next year for her. Manassas Park offers a morning preschool five days a week for 150 a month (right now), and we think that this may be well worth the money, especially because her kindergarten will be all day. I'm not very worried about the academic side of stuff, but I'd really like to give her the ability to interact with other kids and teachers in a "school-like" way. Not so much for the transition to kindergarten, which I think would be fine and we could always work through if needed, but mostly because I think she would really, really enjoy it.

SHe got into a phase of not eating her dinner and we had to have a number of discussions and time outs, and she is now doing a great job! The time out seems to be a pretty effective tool for us, so we'll see how it works for Micah. I'll never forget the time that she got out of time out and Micah got into her chair and started making crying noises like he was in time out! He wants to do everything that she can, naturally, but sometimes he bugs her, so we're learning about independence and what she has the right to do (go into her room and shut the door if she wants to play alone) and what she doesn't have the right to do (demand that Micah stops looking at her, which is a big one lately). And she always wants to help with everything, so I try to find ways to let her do that. Although when it comes to her own chores, that's another story... ;) She also says the cutest, sweetest stuff, like when she wanted to go downstairs when someone was sleeping she said, "Don't worry, my eyes are very quiet." "I'm writing a letter to God so he doesn't get sick. Dear God Don't get sick love Love Alexis." "Does God live in our heart? Will he be there when we get home?"

It melts my heart.

Gearing Up

2010-12-22T11:16:00.000-08:00

I don't know what I'm going to do when Christmas is over and Alexis wants something. I've been telling her for a while now that she can't add to her Christmas list, but once Christmas is over and she wants something, she doens't have it to look forward to anymore. Oh the trials of being three! We went out for as a family this morning (I'll tell you in a minute why this was momentous) and she wanted EVERYTHING. But as my mom said, how can she not see something, think it's cool, and want it? Isn't this perfectly natural when a kid is three? All about balance, right? Anyway, we went to World Market for a while and got some Christmas goodies, and then we went to Petsmart a few doors down so that the kids could look at the animals. It's the next best thing to the zoo, seriously. They had a dog class in session, which is what I was really hoping for, and they both spent most of the time there watching a dozen dogs from behind glass walls. Micah especially thought it was hysterical, and we also looked at birds and fish and mice. Afterwards we headed over to Olive Garden, just like last year, and had the bottomless soup, salad, and breadsticks. I still love their salad, but they have a creamy soup that has sausage and kale and potaoes in it that Jason and I both love. Plus, it's niceto go out to a nicer restaurant but not have to wait twenty minutes for our food to be ready. Since our normal babysitter was sick, it was good for all of us to get out of the house.

And the reason WHY is was so good ot be out of the house is because everyone except me has been sick. Micah got a cold first, then Alex started getting sick. We're pretty sure she had the flu becauseshe was running a fever for a few days, but she's doing better now. Micah seems completel fine except for a bit of a runny nose. And Jason just got a cold we think. It wasn't exactly the way we anticipated spending our first week of vacation, but overall it's been nice. We've just all been cooped up in the house and unable to go out as a family until today.

We still have snow on the ground here from almost a week ago because it's been so cold. Alex loved playing in it last week before she got sick, and her interpretation of playing in the snow was to help me sweep the sidewalk ;) She wants to help a little too much sometimes, but that's how it goes when you're three. A neighbor of ours came over last week to get some baby clothes, and Alex wanted to help give her every single piece of clothing. Amy was really nice about it and commented on what a helper Alex was, although I expect it mostly stemmed from her desire to be in the middle of ANYTHING that is happening. Amy, who teaches kindergarten, did tell me that she thought Alexis' language skills were great and that she knew a lot more than some of her students did, which made me feel good that Alexis doing fine.

Micah continues to babble and babble babble. He's been playing with a set of flash cards a lot recently and is learning a lot of different objects that way, and he has started to get into wooden puzzles, just like she did. He still loves to be in someone's lap if he can get it, and is just as sweet and stubborn and energetic and crazy as he has been. He has recently started coloring a lot and will sit down at his table with a book and crayons and be content for five or ten minutes just doing that.

Jason and I are excited about having Christmas, too. We're starting our own traditions, which is really nice. For example, we've been putting together a gingerbread house, and Alex thinks it's tons of fun. I'll have to post a picture of it after the holidays. We're going to wake up and do presents on the morning of Christmas Eve, and then we'll leave to go see family that afternoon. I think she'll like what she got. They both ahve stockings this year, and we got her mostly things that she can make. However, we did buy her a toy shopping cars, and yesterday when I asked her what was on her Christmas list that she really wanted, she said the shopping cart, so I'm feeiling pretty good right now. Micah's main present is this train that he can sit on that has letter blocks tha that he can push in one place andhtey shoot out another. It was a great yard sale find :) I went through the process a few days ago of taking out a bunch of their toys to make room for some new ones, and I think that in a few months it will be time to start to getrid of a few older toys instead of just cycling them in and out. Otherwise, our home will just be one big toy box!

Holiday Updates

2010-12-13T05:14:00.000-08:00

The kids are gearing up for Christmas! We put up a tree for the first time in five years, and Alexis got a huge kick out of helping decorate the tree. I got her a snowglobe ornament with her name on it, and she thought it was really cool that she got to hang the first ornament on the tree. We had to block Micah with the coffee table while we were doing it, and we have to block off the actual tree with an ottoman, but the kids still love it. We have few decorations otherwise, which is good because we don't really have a place to put stuff. However, we do have two stockings hanging from our bookshelves that we'll fill up with goodies for the kids. Our plan is to open presents with the four of us on Christmas Eve, probably in the morning.

We did celebrate Christmas in Greensboro a little early this year. We drove down there the weekend before Thanksgiving and had a great trip other than Micah not wanting to sleep the entiretime we were there. However, we still had lots of fun. Dad took Alexis out just the two of them, which was really cool. She got a unicorn pillow pet that she basically adores and sleeps with every night, and Micah got this racetrack toy with cars that slide down ramps. They actually bothhave fun with it, but it's been especially cool to watch Micah learn how to truly use it. Alex also helped decorate dad's tree in Greensboro, which she loved, and we got to see the Silers, which was great.

We celebrated Thanksgiving at our house again this year, and mom and Earl came up and we had a great, relaxed time. Most of what I made was desserts: red velvet cupcakes, cream cheese truffles, and black forest brownie pecan pie. I also made sweet potatoe casserole for lunch, and mom brought home-grown vegetables. We ordered a chicken and papusas from Guapo's and had a grandThanksgiving feast without too much work! Alexis really enjoyed being a part of things this year instead of just falling asleep on the couch. She especially enjoyed helping with the desserts, as evidenced by the massive amount of sprinkles on some of the truffles! It was nice to have leftovers but not too many leftovers.

December has been pretty busy. We've been hanging out with a lot of people, which has made life a bit hectic but really nice as well.The kids have been enjoying finaly hanging out ith other people again; it took us a long time for everyone to be healthy again. Yesterday was actually the first day that all four of us were able to be at church in a long time.

Alexisis really looking forward to Christmas and learning about the birth of Christ and giving presents and all of that. She is also learning that Santa isn't real. I know - we're THOSE parents, but I don't really see a reason to tell her that Santais anything other than a nice, fun story. And she likes Santa, so that's fun. She is going through a stage of everything being amazing or the depths of despair. Wait! Did I write about that alst time? Oh yeah... this stage is called BEING THREE! She is wonderfully expressive and loves to play jokes but has a HARD time when she doesn't get her way and can cry at the drop of a hat. She is, though, learning lots of new things and has a hugeinterest in the world around her. Andshetruly is articulate and funny. Yesterday her father taught her to say "The Christmas tree is an innocuous symbol of Christmas. It's not pagan anymore." Thsi cracked meup because it was basically the first thing she said to me when I came downstairs. She hasno clue what it means, of course, but it's pretty hysterical to hear.

Micah is talking up a storm. So far, as far as words, I can recall the following that he says: mommy, daddy, eye, nose, hi, ball, sit (his favorite), dog, cat, fish, bird, pig, duck, car, ma/pa (for Guapo), cup, and some other things that I can't think of right now. It's cool to hear him say all of these things, especially when Alexis started speaking so late. Each kid is different, though, right? Micah is especially stubborn and gets frustrated fairly easily, so that's something that can be a challenge to deal with. He doesn't respond to verbal discipline the way that Alexis did, but he's learning. He also finally sat still long enough for Jason to read him an actual book the other night. While he'll usually sit in your lap for good periods of time, he only wants to grab th ebook that you're reading from. (That's another favorite word: book.) He's starting to figure out puzzles - the wooden kind where you fit an animal into a space.

And the spinning. Oh my goodness the spinning. I think the boy would do it all day long if I let him. Other than saying "sit" over and over again so that you'll pick him up and put him on the couch, spinning is his favorite activity. (However, he can get ON the couch on his own now, which presents a whole new area of challenges.) He will spin until he falls downand then get abck up and spin again. Other favorite activities: pulling the dishtowels off of the stove in a powerful, control-hungry flourish, getting naked, trying to turn on Alexis's snowglobe ornament, sitting in your lap, and disupting mealtimes. Least favorite activities: being ignored, sleeping (this has been a problem the last few weeks), mommy leaving the room, not being picked up, being ignored... did I mention this boy likes his attention? :)

Micah

2010-10-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

At 15 months he is 22 pounds and 2 ounces. He is also 30 and 1/4 inches long. He's doing fine. He has a bit of an infection that we just thought was allergies the past few days, but he's on some medicine to help knock it out before it becomes anything bigger. He also has a hemorrhoid; I didn't even know kids could get those, but I'm glad I asked about it. It could very well go away on it's own, or we may have to get it removed at some point, but it doesn't seem to be bothering him too much. Overall, though, he's doing just fine.

Homecoming

2010-10-15T02:54:00.001-07:00

Jason was in Peru and Ecuador for the past week and a half. Alexis wasn't very happy about this and was missing him a lot during this trip, understandably so. She was a little mad at him I think because she (pretty adamantly) refused to talk to him on the phone. When we got home from picking him up, Jason put her to bed and she rolled ovver like she would go instantly to sleep. However, she then popped up quickly and said "Now, don't go to work EVER AGAIN." And rolled back over to go to sleep. I think Jason's heart melted right then. Cutest thing ever.

Jason is home, and we had a nice day with the kids yesterday since he was off. We were going to go to a festival, but it decided to rain all day and we stayed home. On Saturday (if our car is fixed... again...) we're going to go out and celebrate our anniverary. Seven years. Hooray!

Micah has a 15 month appointment on Monday, and I imagine his doctor will tell him he is completely fine. He still never walks anywhere, only runs. My favorite is when he gets some speed up and is jogging along making little grunting happy noises and his fat cheeks start bouncing up and down. All he wants all of the time right now is to be up on a couch or a chair. Literally. He's trying to climb into my lap right now as I type. The problem is that he hasn't yet figured out how to get up on his own. Hopefully that's coming soon, but I'm glad it didn't come earlier like it did with Alexis. I think if he tumbles off a couch it's not really going to hurt him at all right now, which is what I always worried about with her. He'll sit on the couch, though, and if you have a few picture books, he'll usually be content for a LONG time just pointing out pictures and having you say the name of the picture and then trying to repeat it. You can really see his vocabulary beginning to take off and he readily knows words like milk and banana and will point or go to where they are when he wants them. He's also starting to point out some pictures like clock and pig, which is very cool to see. And, of course, He adores his Guapo, which is his best friend elephant. He also enjoys playing chase with his sister. It was amazing the other day to hear them upstairs, playing in their rooms, and laughing for over five minutes straight while they were doing this.

Alexis is turning into a super cleaner upper in the evening. She has the responsibility of cleaning up the basement and her room, and (most of the time now) she does a really good job. She gets incredibly excited about us seeing what a good job she does and thrusts her head into the bed or sofa until we come and see her handiwork. Her favorite thing right now is making crafts, and our dining room table is usually littered with scraps of paper and crayons and stickers and glue and foam and yard for her to create something special. (She has also started saying, around 7:30 at night when we go to bed), that she REALLY wants to do something SPECIAL tonight. It's pretty funny. She is developing a good vocabulary and busted out with the word purchase a few days ago at the store, and a woman overheard her and laughed because she thought it was very impressive to hear that from a kid her age. That made me feel good. A few months ago I got the most recent Ramona Quimby book at a used bookstore, and she saw it in her closet and claimed it as her favorite book. We've actually been reading it at night, and she will begin chapter 3 tonight. We'll see how long this lasts, but it's pretty cool that she's listening. I sometimes have to convince herto listen a bit, but she always enjoys it, especially when she can delay bedtime! The one thing I'm really trying to work on with her is consequences. She has a hard time focusing on things, so I'm trying to learn to appropriately enforce her decisions. For example, if she says she wants to go outside and play sidewalk chalk and then she plays for about twenty seconds and then stops, we'll go inside. Last night when I told her she could have a cookie after she did a good job of cleaning up and she didn't do a good job, she didn't get a cookie. Hopefully she's learning from these things.

Overall, the kids are doing really well. Alexis prays for her new cousin, Elizabeth, every night, along with her parents. Elizabeth was born at 27 weeks and just over two pounds and is quite a feisty one I've heard. She had surgery to correct some birth defects earlier in the week, and she'll have to have more done at 3-6 months. It looks like she'll be in the hospital for 6-9 months at this point, which is incredibly difficult. We pray for them. We also pray for Earl every night, and mom, as he goes through shemo treatments. Jason has today off, too, so we have a long, four-day weekend to enjoy together since he was gone. Hooray for family time and relaxing!

Alexis

2010-09-24T04:55:00.000-07:00

Micah started saying Alex's name yesterday afternoon. It sounds like a two-syllable "ice" amnd is really adorable because he was doing it over and over and over again. She was the first person in his room this morning, and I heard him say her name when she walked in. It's pretty stinkin' cute.

His favorite thing right now is to run to someone, turn around, and sit in an available lap. I don't know what it is about this that he likes, but it's one of his favorite games. And I'm definitely not complaining that he wants to be close! I'll take all the cuddles I can get since he's always so on the go!

Language Explosion

2010-09-21T07:11:00.000-07:00

Micah is experiencing a language explosion! He is finally starting to identify objects more readily. He'll go get his ball, a book, his Guapo (elephant), Maardvark, and even his cup sometimes. He'll also say "ba" for ball, and we were just reading a book that had a picture of a car on it and he looked at it and said "ca" without any prompting. It was so cool! He's going to talk more quickly than Alex did, which will be a little weird for me simply because I'm not used to that. Let the fun begin!

A Disgrace

2010-09-08T11:51:00.001-07:00

I haven't updated since Micah's birthday. SHAME ON ME!

In August we went on a wonderful first family vacation. We were lent the use of a house in Wintergreen, and it was amazing! It was this huge house that slept fourteen people (easily), so we closed off the basement and used the top two floors. There was a huge, open kitchen/dining/living area, and there was even a little playroom for the kids to use! Jason and I slept in a loft bedroom, and Alexis slept in a room that had a forest mural painted all over the walls. She loved it and slept in a regular bed for the first time. She did fall out on night, but she was fine the other nights. While we were there we took the kids to the pool, to the lake (they played in the sand and had lots of fun digging), to a small museum where Alexis got to "dig" for fossils, went hiking, watched movies and tv, and generally just had a very relaxing time together, which was the whole point. Alexis keeps talking about going on vacation, so I think it was an exciting time for her. I thikn of all things she was most excited about her bug net! She caught a number of cool bugs in it.

We've been spending quite a bit of time lately fixing some things around the house. We still have a number of things to do outside that aren't completed yet, but Alexis is very willing to "help" with anything and everything! It's hard to believe how big she is getting. We've been going over letters in a workbook that she has, so she's starting to pick up a little bit on what sounds make what noises and what words start with what letters. We've only done a handful, but I think she's doing a reasonable job of learning. She has also recently gotten really good at coloring. It was like something clicked inside of her, and now she can color in the lines and WANTS to color in the lines. She is still taking a nap in the afternoons, but we'll see how much longer that lasts. She also went to camp in the mornings for two weeks this summer, and she LOVED it! The second week was at the park, and they have a water playground there, so she went swimming every day. The first day she came out saying "I went down the slide all by myself and didn't swallow any water!" She is also picking out her own clothes most days and is really helpful when we go out; she is very cooperative, rarely cranky, and can get in and out of the car by herself, which is really nice. She does go back and forth with pouting or being really upset when she doesn't get her way, but we're working on that. She has actually really responded to time outs. She doesn't like to go and udnerstands why she is there, and I think it has clicked with her as a form of discipline.

Micah isn't a baby anymore. He is definitely a toddler, or whatever you call the next stage. He never crawls anywhere and rarely walks; he just wants to run. He has started to play jokes on people, like taking a toy and pretending to give it to me but then snatching it away. That's one of his favorites. He also will sometimes play peek-a-boo and put his hands over his eyes and gets very excited when he takes them off. AND he'll hide under tables and act like he told a really funny joke. It's your basic non-baby adorableness. He is really expressive, just like Alexis was, but whereas by this time Alexis was starting to identify some objects, he has no interest in that. However, he'll repeat a lot of sounds randomly, so it sounds like he's trying to say things like "ice" and "bread" and other things. He really only says mommy, though, even though he is incredibly vocal, much more than she was. I guess that's prone to happen when you have a big sister jabbering at you all day. He is also incredibly attached to his best friend, his elephant who is now named Guapo. He adores this thing. He especially likes to plunge his face into it. However, he likes to plunge his face into everything and will run to you with an open mouth and plant his face into your chest or face or neck with a big hug. My favorote is when he does this to Alexis and he gets her right in the stomach! She thinks it's really funny. I think that Micah has given up his morning nap, which makes me sad, but that's what kids do, right? He still sleeps really well at night; I don't think I've had to get up in the middle of the night for weeks. (The bigger problem with that was with Alexis for a while. First it was spiders, and then it was whales. She has worked through it mostly, and tells us that when she has a bad dream she prays to God to keep her safe and then goes back to sleep. Oh, and she has also started making up these crazy elaborate, incomprehensible stories that she tells us at night. It's only been a few so far, but I imagine more are coming.) Micah has finally gotten off the bottle totally and now only used sippy cups. It was a process, but he's all good now. He also has started to color a little bit, and by this I mean he'll pick up a crayon and eat some and then color a little on the paper, and then try desperately to color on the floor, and then eat some more crayon. (By eat I mean try to eat... lol)

Overall they are both doing great. I'm trying to integrate their learning together a lot by identifying objects for Micah and then asking Alexis what letter the word starts with. Has anyone else ever noticed that a lot of kid words start with the letter B? Alex is really good with that letter.

2010-07-15T15:25:00.000-07:00

"I like Micah. He's the favorite friend ever!"

(while holding Jason's face in her hands and with a tone of gentle chastisement) "Look, don't chew maardvark;s nose, okay?"

"We eatt the rocks so that America can be free."

These are just a few of the most recetn ridiculously cute things that Alexis has said. She's such a hoot! He favorite thing right now is jumping EVERYWHERE! She can really launch herself off of the couch in the basement; it's pretty impressive. She's been in camp this week, and even though when we ask her if she likes it she says no sometimes, every day when I pick her up she's really excited about what she did that day. She told me it was the best party ever yesterday! She's the youngest kid there, but that's probably good for her. She went swimming the first day, but she swallowed some water and had to sit out for the rest of the time. They haven't gone back since, but I think it was probably good for her to have something a little scary in the water so that she gets a healthy fear of water. We went swimming last Saturday, and she kept wanting to insist that she coudl do it all by herself. It's great to see the independence, but with something like water, it's a little scary, too. We got her a life vest, so hopefully that will help the next time she goes swimming.

Micah is doing great. He walks everywhere and has absolutely no desire to be held at all. Sorry to everyone who wants to cuddle with him!He also loves to walk around wih objects in his hands, especially if thery're exceptionally large.I'm not sure why he likes that unless it's just for the challenge of it, but it's his chosen mode oftransportation. It's pretty funny to watch him walk around with a big red ball of penguin that it as big as he is! He's still not really talking, but he jabbers a lot. We've been working on identifying objects a little. Alexis picked up on a numbof things by the time she was about 14 months, so we'll see wherehe is in a few months. He also had his one year checkup today. He has to go back for a few more shots in a week (because he's not officially one yet), but the doctor said he looks great! He seemed pretty please to watch him walking around. Micah now weighs 19 pounds and 6 ounces, and he is 28" long. I think he's as tall as Alex was when we moved into the house, which was when she was 1 1/2. We also switched him to a front-fcing car seat a few days ago, which has been a really good move. He was starting to get pretty unhappy about hte other seat, where he had to recline, so now he has a good view of everything. I can't believe he'll be one on Saturday!

Officially Walking

2010-06-13T17:20:00.001-07:00

Micah is officially walking. He took his first step two weeks ago (May 30?), and yesterday he took four steps at a time a number of times. Before bed he had done seven or eight. This morning before church he did 14, and then this afternoon he's just decided that he "gets" it and is walking. He's still pretty wobbly, but he'll do it on his own now without any convincing. I think he thinks it's pretty cool that he can do this. I think Alex did the exact same thing aroung the same time. Anyway, he's officially walking. While I'm sure that I'll continue to count sometimes, I'm not going to keep track of it anymore. He's going to be a little firecracker by the time he's one.

Alexis' Birthday

2010-05-17T04:23:00.000-07:00

First, I'm trying out some new features for easy picture and video upload to Blogger, so hopefully I'll have more pics and videos up. I'm also diving into the HUGE task of trying to organize our pictures. There are a lot of them. I think I got through 2010 yesterday, and now it's time to tackle 2009. Yikes.

Alxis is now THREE!!! She had a very nice birthday. On Wednesday she opened up our presents and some other presents from family, and she had a blast. We put a happy birthday sign on the curtain rod and a bunch of balloons on her chair while we opened presents. We had hot dogs for dinner, and after we opened presents we went out to Coldstone Creamery so that she could get her first free birthday ice cream. It was a nice birthday. The other day we finally took the balloons off of her chair, and she discovered a "pocket" next to our black chair that has a floor vent. When she put the balloons there and the air came on, they started bouncing all over while staying in that same little pocket. She calls it a balloon party and keeps inviting us to her balloon party. It's so cute!

She went to the doctor on Thursday and is 34 3/4" tall and weighs 28.5 pounds. What was cool is that her doctor remarked on her vocabulary multiple times and was pretty impressed. He said that she did a great job following directions (he asked her to push his hands and pull him towards her and stuff like that), and he asked if I sent her to preschool and I said no, and he seemed pretty surprised at that and said that I was doing a good job at home. WHen we were leaving he said that she has a pretty amazing vocabulary and called her a smart cookie. Yes, I'm bragging a little bit about my girl. I try really hard not to be too wrapped up in things like that, but when her doctor says that she's smart, that feels pretty good.

She is still doing a good job with potty training. We've had a few accidents here and there, but for the most part she's good with it. She was still sleeping with a gate up because she's a wanderer, but now that she's three I'm starting to leave the gate off and a nightlight on. I don't want her wandering around in the middle of the night, especially with stairs, but I also want her to have ready access to the toilet if she needs it. I'm also trying to teach her not to come out of her room to get me until there's a 7 in the first number slot on the clock. We'll see how it goes. She did a great job this morning and went to the potty before she ever came to get me. Hooray! (The kids also slept a little later because it's raining and darker than normal outside.)

And tragically, she cried when Jason left yesterday. She has an understanding that he's going to be gone for a while and keep saying things like "Don't go to Guatemalee" and curling up in his lap and asking him to stay. When he got out of the car at the airport, she started to cry, and it was so sad and cute at the same time. Jason loved it and hated it all at the same time, which I'm sure you can understand.

Micah is downstairs playing right now, which is wonderful because he got sick on Saturday. It was either some 24 hour thing or teething, but Saturday he was running a pretty high temperature and I slept on the floor next to him that night (meaning I didn't sleep much, but that's what you do, right?). His temperature was down a little bit yesterday morning, which was good because if it had been the same I would have called the doctor. He was still pretty unhappy yesterday, but last night he started to feel better and wasn't nearly as warm, and he slept for over twelve hours last night and wok eup happy and feverless this morning. Hooray! I'll still keep an eye on him for a day or two, but hopefully he's all good now and isn't making Alexis sick.

Micah has been standing on his own sometimes for about five seconds at a time, and he understands putting one foot in front of another for walking, but I think it will still be a little bit of time before he does that. I'll be interested in seeing whether he does it before he's one.

My birthday was also pretty great. I came downstairs early to make a bottle for Micah and was confused because there was stuff out for pancakes... Jason surprised me by taking the day off of work! It was pretty great. He's a keeper.

2010-05-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

Almost Three

2010-05-06T06:42:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that Alexis is going to be three next week. It's a bit bewildering. She remains, however, the cutest little girl in the universe! (I'm not biased at all. I promise.) Last night when we were getting ready for bed, she decided she wanted to build a nest, so she took all of her friends and piled them around her in a corner of her bed. She did the same when she went to sleep. When Jason asked if she was a bird, she responded by saying, "tweet tweet." It cracked me up so much because I have no clue where it came from!

She is having her drama queen moments (or days), but I msotly try to be compassionate and ignore her meltdowns, all at the same time. That sounds contradictory, doesn't it? She has amazing days, and then she'll have a day where she wakes up and just can't deal with anything, especially if I have other things I need to accomplish. However, she's learning to handle herself, which is good. She also, for the most part, adores Micah. For some reason she doesn't like to play with him in the basement much, but they've started having their own special time after lunch before they both take a nap. They hang out in his room and have a blast, just the two of them. Micah loves her; she adores him except when he's trying to grab her stuff.

Micah continues to do more tricks. He is so incredibly mobile now and shoots up the stairs, rarely faltering. I definitely still stay behind hi in case he does, but it takes him about a minute to get from the basement to the kitchen. He also started to try and stand a few days ago. He hasn't done it much, but he'll occasionally let go for a few seconds and wobble a bit on his legs until he falls on his butt. He'll even sometimes walk towards me if I'm holding his hand; he understand the whole putting one foot in front of the other thing, which is cool to see. I don't know if he'll walk as early as Alexis did, but he might. (She started walking around 11 months I think.)

9 Months

2010-04-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

Micah is doing great. 18 pounds, 9 ounces. 27 3/4" (I think - maybe it was 26 3/4?), and basically a completely average size. He is walking around by holding onto things and generally just enjoying life.

Steps

2010-04-09T11:57:00.001-07:00

Micah climbed up half a flight of stairs this morning.

All Sorts of Milestones

2010-03-31T04:46:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, MIcah decided that he wanted to push forward with his development. He started to crawl with his belly off the floor, he started creeping a little but, which is holding on to something like a couch and moving his feet along while he's standing, and he began to hit toys together to make a noise. It was pretty cool to watch him start to do all of those things, especially the crawling. In the past few days, too, Micah has started to babble SO MUCH! It's hysterical to listen to him trying to communicate. Alexis was always so quiet, so I wonder if he'll talk sooner than she did, especiallly since she's around to talk to him. We'll see. He's been pulling up without any problems whatsoever for a few weeks now; he's getting so big, and he's going to be more like a little kid than a baby very, very soon.

Alexis also had her first Easter egg hunt over the weekend, and she loved it! We hid eggs around Jason's parents' yard, and after we showed her how to do it, she just took off! There were one or two Reeses' Pieces in the eggs, and she wanted to eat them all as we went along. We had to convince her to wait so that she wasn't eating so much candy. She finished the first hunt really quickly, so she went back inside and Jason and I hid the eggs again, this time so that they were a little more difficult to find. She had a blast with it!

Both of the kids are doing well. Micah is finally taking a bottle without any problems, which is wonderful! He continues to be a really happy kid and does a great job of sleeping through the night. Alexis has enjoyed going to storytime at the library, and it's wonderful that the weather is so much nicer now so that she can play outside more.

Pulling Up

2010-03-16T04:06:00.001-07:00

Micah is now pulling up on things. A few weeks he started to truly crawl. One day he was pushing with his legs, and then a few days later he was off and going. He's gotten really fast, although he still crawls with his stomach on the floor. Last week he started to pull up on some things. I caught him standing next to the toy box downstairs, and after I caught him with his two front arms on the bottom step, I knew I had to start putting the gate up downstairs. Last night I got really excited because I actually found him standing in his crib! It's very cool, but I also knew it meant that it would be a while before he could figure out how to get down again. Just as I thought, he woke up really early this morning and was crying because he was standing up and couldn't figure out how to get down again! It was cute but sad, and he definitely slept a lot less this morning because of it. However, overall he has been sleeping wonderfully, even when we spent two nights away this past weekend. He woke up once during the night at mom and Earl's, and he woke up a number of times at Nanny and Papaw's house, but a lot of that was because of heavy thunderstorms I think. I never actually got up to get him, though, so it's great that he'll sleep through the night when away from home.

He has been on a pretty regular schedule for a few weeks ago, which is nice. He usually gets up around 7:00 and eats some. He was nursing, but we're now weaning him from the morning feeding and putting him on a bottle. He's actually doing a much better job with the bottle now, which makes me really happy. I'm hoping that in a few days he won't even hesitate to use the bottle; we've been doing the morning bottle for about a week now, and he's had a few bad days and a few perfect days. This morning was a great day, hooray! Okay, so after he drinks, he'll usually eat some cereal around 8:00 or so and then go down for a nap around 8:30 or so. Then he'll get up, play some, and have some fruits or veggies around 11:00, play some more, and then maybe have some more solid food and nurse some. He then usually goes down for a big nap in the early afternoon, and it's especially nice when I can get both of them napping at the same time. He'll wake up, play for a while, eat some more fruits or veggies around 4:00, play some more, have a short nap around 5:30, eat some cereal around 6:00, and then go to bed about 7:30. I'll usually then wake him up about 8:30 to nurse again, but I'm hoping to be able to start giving him his last nursing time a little earlier so that I can just put him to bed after that. he's also started to eat little puffs, which he loves! It's really entertaining for him, and Alex loves to give them to him.

He is very mobile, and Alexis loves it. Most of the time... :)

Update on the Kids

2010-02-05T06:37:00.000-08:00

Wow. I'm sorry it's been so long!

First, Micah. He is doing great! Over the holidays we weren't able to do the whole "crying it out" thing for a number of reasons like sickness or travel. However, in January when we were going to be home for a while and everyone was feeling good, we took a few nights to let him cry when he woke up at night. He was pretty textbook about it; he cried for about forty-five minutes the first night, then about thirty, then about fifteen, and now he almost never wakes up. (He's been having some cold/allergy problems, and things are always different then...) Typically, though, we put him down around 7:30 at night, and then I wake him up at 9:00 and fee him again before I go to bed. Then he sleeps through the night! I can usually hear him stirring a little before 7:00, but he entertains himself for a while. Alexis will also usually wake up around the same time and entertain herself for a little while, so most days I don't have to get up until sometime between 7:00 and 7:30. It's been a HUGE difference in my life to get a full night of sleep!

Micah continues to be a really relaxed kid. He almost never cries without a very specific reason, and of course, like most babies, he's all smiles these days! He started to sit up right at six months, and after two weeks he likes to spend a huge part of his day sitting up and playing with his toys. The other day he started to do a "mini-crawl" with his little legs pushing his body along. It wasn't quite a real crawl, but I think he's going to start doing that soon. He's getting so big! It's funny to watch him do the swimming motion on his stomach, with his arms and legs flailing like he can get somewhere. Yesterday he got up on his hands and knees for the first time, which was really cool to see. Because of all of this, the bald patch on the back of his head is starting to go away, but he still has a glorious mohawk.

He's been battling a cold and allergies on and off since Christmas, but he's been pratty happy almost the entire time and doesn't get too upset unless his nose is being sunctioned a lot or he has some sort of bad coughing fit. He loves to look around at everything and gets really determined to get one of his toys; this is what made him do the mini-crawl before. It's so cool to watch him want something and then go get it! Even though he can't quite crawl, he's amazing at turning his body and rolling and getting to where he wants to be using that method. He likes to grab at the loops on the rug and just began to to enjoy playing peek-a-boo.

He loves eating solid foods and usually has two servings of cereal and 2-3 jars of fruits or veggies each day. He's still nursing exclusively, but I'm trying to give him a sippy cup a lot so that he can get used to drinking from that. He hasn't really gotten it yet, but that's okay. He'll figure it out at some point. No teeth yet, either. His doctor thought he's get some by the time he's about seven months, but he thought that he would have teeth around four months, too. Alexis didn't get teeth until pretty far after her first birthday, and he might be the same.

Alexis is a little ball of fury. I can't believe how grown-up she's getting. The other day in the car on the way home from the train, she just started talking about her day and it was like a monologue! Her language skills are getting really great. She's also around kids more than she used to be. I started going to a MOPS group, and she plays with other kids in a class. Micah is also watched, which is nice for me because I get a two hour break from my kids every other week. :) She ALWAYS wants to play, which is a bit exhausting at times, but we have lots of fun. She's also trying to push boundaries and see how far she can go with things, but I think she's learning that we don't listen to whining and don't allow tantrums. Hopefully she still feels free to express her feelings while at the same time learning how to express them appropriately, but that's a difficult thing for kids. She has a little bedtime routine now and always wants to do three different things before going to bed: I Got You (the game where Jason sits in the middle and she runs in a circle around him saying, "I got you" over and over), rolling, and somersaults. Then she gets into bed and we read a book to her, and then she reads a few pages to us. About a week ago I think she started to make the connection that each individual word on the page meant something and was read separately, and that was really neat to see.

Alexis is very into stickers and making little crafts. I put a bunch of rice into a plastic bin for her, and she loves to play in it and pour and scoop and generally make a mess out of it. She's also wonderful with Micah and understands that there are certain things he can and can't have and is getting better about sharing with him as well. Having an almost three-year-old is a handful, but she is so much fun and so interactive and just an enjoyable kid.

So Begins the Chaos

2009-12-20T13:57:00.000-08:00

Micah is officially rolling over from bak to tummy and from tum to back. We were practcing going from tummy to back this mornign, and ly dit again. Hooray! And now we have to put up the gates! ;)

Here are some pics. I included some of our new kitchen.

4 Months

2009-11-27T07:55:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-07T14:20:00.000-08:00

The Christmas Edition

2009-11-07T05:38:00.000-08:00

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.

Delinquent Updates (not children)

2009-10-22T08:02:00.000-07:00

Let's start with Alexis. Her favorite new phrase is "be quiet!" As you can probably assume, we're not overjoyed about this. She has hit that 2 1/2 year stage, the one when every six months a kid gets especially difficult. She definitely wants her own way, and I am constantly having to tell her to watch the tone in her voice, something that is difficult to figure out how to phrase for a two-year-old. However, she also busts out with hysterical stuff, like walking into her room when Jason and I are both already there and saying "hey guys!" Or trying to figure out how to say Periwinkle, the name of a cat, and saying "pinkywiggie" instead.

Potty training is going decently. I know that people have these stories of training their kids in three days, but that's just not Alexis. Or maybe I'm not dedicated enough. She has, however, peed in the potty at least once a day for about a week, and she pooped once last week, too! This is exciting news for me. Cleaning it up is not my favorite thing, so if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to pass them along. One great tip is to use a coffee filter when she's pooping, but it's a big pain when she's just peeing.

She's also still growing, but she's still so tiny! She barely fits into 24m or 2T stuff sometimes, and I just bought her an 18m dress a little while ago. But she's so cute in her petiteness! I chopped all of her hair off the other day. She now has a very short bob. Her hair was touching her shoulders, but it was so thin, especially at the ends, that I just decided to cut it off. Hopefully it's thickening up some. She's doing so much big girl stuff, though, like climbing the stairs at Chick-fil-a to go down the slide, or climbing up the swirly purple slide at the playground. She still wants to help with Micah a lot, which is nice, but she tends to get in the way a lot, too, so we try to find the balance between letting her feel free to express herself and do what she wants AND restricting her and pulling her back when necessary. It's quite a task.

Micah is just HUGE! I was so sad because yesterday I put him into some six month pajamas for the first time. And they fit. Where is my baby time? In a year they're going to look like they're twins... He has started to sleep through the night about half of the time, and by that I mean he goes in his crib around 9 and gets up at 5 or 6. The other half of the time he gets up around 2 or 3 and then I feed him again in the early morning. He lets me sleep more than Alexis ever did. I suppose that huge belly of his can hold a lot more food at a time.

He's a lot mroe interactive now, too. He likes to grab things and bring them to his mouth, he's playing with his fingers a ton and is learning how to suck on his hand and his thumb, and he smiles and laughs so much! I actually really like changing his diaper because 1. he usually only poops about once a day (Alex pooped ALL the time), and 2. when I start taking off his clothes, he gets this huge smile on his face and will usually start laughing because he knows what's coming. And then if I tickle his belly or kiss it a lot he'll laugh even harder, and it's so adorable!

The kids are doing well, and our life is getting really crazy. Jason has been working a lot lately because he's acting as a field office director for Bolivia for a few months, and I just finished training for the online tutoring company I'm going to be working for. I imagine that I'll start next week or the week after. I'll be reading and giving critical feedback about papers that students submit to the company. A bunch of colleges pay for the service, so it's not like it costs the students anything, and I'm supposed to do about one paper every 30 minutes. That part will be a challenge at first, but it will get easier as I progress. We'll see how it works; right now I have to work ten scheduled hours a week, which is a lot. I'm also going to be teaching another Eastern class in about a month. While it's not the ideal time and will make things really hectic, it's a great opportunity, it's a grammar class (I couldn't handle a writing one right now), and the pay is too good to pass up. New kitchen counters, here I come! Actually, my current house project is painting the grout in our kitchen, which is a dificult task. It's not going to look perfect, but it's going to look a whole lot better than the black, dirty grout that we currently have that will never get clean.

We're off to the park this afternoon. :) Pictures. Soon. I promise. Maybe.

It's a PARTY!!!

2009-09-22T04:53:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I did some more "decorating" in Alex's room. I got a bunch of ladybug wall decals and put them all over the place. I was trying to get it all done before she came in, but she wanted to come upstairs so I let her see it. She walked in, looked around, said "WOW" and "it's a party!!!" This is her phrase for her new room - IT'S A PARTY!!! I think that's pretty hysterical. We've been trying to start potty training her, but so far she's not very into the idea. We sit on the potty a few times each day, and she'll SAY that she needs to poop but hasn't done that yet. The strange thing, though, is that every morning she wakes up talking about needing to poop in the potty. It's the first thing she says. Last night she was sitting on the potty and she grabbed her clean diaper, saw a green puppy, and said goodnight to the green puppy, kissed him, gave the diaper to me, and then kep saying goodbye to the green puppy and blowing him kisses, all while sitting on her potty that she won't use.

Micah had his two month check-up last week and weighs 12 pounds, 1 ounce, so he gained 1 1/2 pounds, which is a much more normal amount of weight to gain. He also had three shots, poor kid, but was very brave. He's still on his medicine for thrush, but if he doesn't stop needing it before, he shouldn't need it by the time he starts eating solids. I also got my flu shot while I was at the doctor because since Micah's too young, he recommended that I get one. He definitely still needs the medicine, though, because when he doesn't have it, he gets crankier and spits up more, etc. Recently, the kids have been letting me sleep in later, which is great! WHen Micah has his early feeding, he usually doesn't go back to sleep immediately after that, but even if he fusses some, I've learned that he doesn't need to eat again and that I can leave him in bed and he ends up pretty happy. He loves to watch the animals on his mobile go around and the pictures go by. (It has a projection thing on it; it's pretty cool.) But he loves that, and on his bouncy seat he just started trying to reach out and tough the little toys that hang on the bar. It's so exciting! I can't wait until he can truly push up on his elbows when he's on his stomach, although then he'll start rolling over and crawling and I'll never have any peace at all!

Jason left for Bolivia unexpectedly last night due to a work situation there, so we're flying solo for a little while. I have a whole list of things that I want to do around the house by the end of October, but we'll have to see if I actually get those things done. I think the first priority is to finally paint the kids' bathroom. I did some cutting in the other day as motiviation to get the rest done. We won second place in our neighborhood's landscaping contest, which is supposed to come with a Home Depot gift card. (We heard the news through neighbors who were at the HOA meeting but haven't heard anything personally, so we're still a bit tentative.) And I still haven't heard back from them about what is wrong with the tree in our front yard that is in viloation.

I am now going to rescue my son from his misery. (He still hates tummy time, but he's got to do it. Hopefully, he'll be much happier when he can push up.)

It Doesn't Get Much Better

2009-09-04T04:06:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning a little before seven. Micah was upset because he had spit up badly all over his bed and was pretty uncomfortable. (And he had a really full dirty diaper.) However, as I was changing him I heard Alexis say her adorable "heWWWOOOOO!!!" She was still in bed so I opened the door, and a moment later she ran into Micah's room and spontaneously said, "I love you." And right now she is giving me a huge hug. And THEN, to top it off, Micah gave me a HUGE smile right after that. Being a mom is pretty cool sometimes.

Yesterday Micah finally mastered turning his head from lef tto right AND right to left while he's on his stomach, which was pretty cool to see. He's getting so big! I'm going to miss the trembling chin when I pick him up sometimes, the way that he pats me with his hand sometimes when I'm burping him, like he's trying to burp me in return, and his general "babyness" because it's not going to last for long!

Yes, He's Still a Meatball

2009-09-02T07:25:00.000-07:00

Micah still seems huge to me, and he's getting more and more adorable, if I do say so myself. While he still has his fussy moments, he remains a pretty chill kid. And very strong. He still doesn't like tummy time, but he can push himself up a little bit and change the direction of his head from one side to the other (right to left, if I recall correctly). He is also eating at longer intervals, which is really nice. At night he has started to go at least 3-4 hours most of the time. (On Saturday night he slept from 10-3, which was incredible, but unusual. He didn't sleep much during the day, though, so I'm sure he was exhausted.) He's starting to get the hair loss ring and has a small bald spot on the back of his head already. Sadness, but it happens to almost all kids, right? The biggest thing, though, is that he has started to smile! I first noticed it a week ago, and they've been becoming more frequent, and he even gave one to Jason the other day when he walked through the door!

Alexis is more and more communicative and remembers everything. And repeats everything. They say kids at this age are simply a sponge, and that really is the truth. She has started to get out of bed sometime when we put her to sleep at night, so last night before prayer we told her that she needed to stay in bed and she wasn't allowed to get out. When I asked if she understood, she said, in her toddler speak, "Understand. Stay IN BED." It was pretty cute, and she did stay in bed. She's starting to say yes ma'am and sir on her own, and she has finally picked up your welcome. And she gets her pronouns entirely confused, but that's normal. (She always says, "MY TURN" when she wants me to do something.)

Other than that, we had a great time in Wilson over the weekend, but traveling with two kids is a bit exhausting. It's more Alexis that's the difficulty now, but that's because she no longer automatically just goes to sleep in the car. I think we're going to look into getting a used or refurbished portable dvd player that we use for just the car on trips. If we can find one for a reasonable price, we think it will be worth it. We've slowly been putting more final touches on the house, like I finally replaced the blinds in the kitchen above the sink, and we finished the front yard landscaping. The three of us just got back from the playground, where it was absolutely beautiful outside. Who would have thought Virginia would see this kind of weather in the first week of September? Bring it on, fall!

Micah's First Month

2009-08-19T13:11:00.000-07:00

Pictures are posted in the provious entry...

Micah now weighs ten pounds, nine ounces. I was astounded! He truly is our little meatball. He gained two inches and is now twenty-two inches. The doctor said that he looks good and that I don't need to be concerned about the weight gain, especially because he's breastfed, and breastfed babies are almost never obese. It's just so strange to think about the difference between Alexis and Micah because she wasn't that big until almost six months.

He has a little bit of cradle cap, has been breaking out a lot recently (probably due to a little bit of heat rash), and has some thrush, so we are going to put him on some medicine to see if we can resolve that. We suspected that he had some reflux issues and the doctor thinks he probably does, too, but we're not putting him on anything for that because it's very manageable. (Alexis' was a lot worse.) The thrush medicine will also, hopefully, help with it as well.

Overall, though, he looks great. It's just shocking how huge he is. Alexis continues to be hysterical and adorable with her brother, but she does have her moments of despair and tragedy when I can't come to her and spend time with her. Overall, she has truly adjusted wonderfully. She is currently obsessed with her Elmo socks and reading about chickens in Spanish.

We finally fnished the landscaping for the front yard. There was a small patch to the right of our steps that needed a retaining wall and a maple, and it actually ended up taking a LOT more work than we thought it would, especially considering that Jason had to pull up a 1 1/2 foot by 1 foot concrete slab, but we finished it late Saturday morning and now have, what I think, is the best looking front yard in the community!

I'm doing well. It's been great having Jason work from home on Wednesdays and off on Fridays. I try to keep the house reasonably clean but don't stress about it too much, and even though I have to get up in the middle of the night, I still feel incredibly well-rested for having a one-month old and a toddler. (I have Jason to thank for a lot of that, especially for letting me sleep!) Micah is starting to go longer between feedings, which is very good news for me, and it's been nice to have some down time the past few weeks.

Just the details this entry. :) That's it for now.

Pictures

2009-08-19T12:54:00.001-07:00

The Meatball

2009-07-28T05:54:00.001-07:00

Yes, that is one of his nicknames. He came out all red and round, and Jason immediately called him meatball, and the name has stuck a little bit. However, he does have a few others. For instance, he is our little baby nazgul (from Lord of the Rings) because sometimes when he cries, he sounds exactly like a baby version of the nazgul in the movies. And Jason thinks he looks like Brain from Pinky and the Brain, and I think he has one face that makes him look like Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life.

Our son doesn't stand a chance...

Our appointment for the surgery was Friday at 10:00. We got there a little bit before 8:00. Of course, I was incredibly excited, so when we got to the doors that you had to get buzzed through, I pushed the button and didn't know what to say, so I ended up saying, "Hi.. .I'm here!!!" I meant to continue with the sentence, but Jason started laughing at me because I was just announcing my arrival. I did, however, get buzzed in succesfully, which is the important part. We ended up simply waiting around for quite a while because they were running a little behind, which I suppose can be expected in a maternity ward. During the wait time we read a little bit and watched a little bit of tv and I got prepped. Honestly, the most painful part of the entire hospital stay was getting the IV put in me then. While I'm not scared of needles, I tend to be a little skittish about them because I had a few bad experiences in Nicaragua. The wait wasn't bad, though, and I went in to begin the process about 11:00. I remember last time when I had to get a spinal how painful it was, not because of the needle itself, but because I had to be scrunched up into a position that really, really hurt when I was so incredibly swollen. The entire process took about 45 minutes. They cleaned him up and then Jason brought him over to me so that I could see him, and he got to hold him most of the time that I was getting stitched back together.

After the actual surgery, we all went into the recovery room for about 45 minutes and I got to hld Micah for the first time. He also nursed for the first time, and he took to that immediately, which made me very happy. After the recovery room, Micah had to go to the nursery for a few hours, so Jason and I went to my actual room and waited and rested. I felt pretty good after surgery; the worst side effect I had was feeling fairly nauseous for the afternoon. Mom and Earl brought Alexis and they all got to meet Micah. Alexis, however, really didnt' care and was a huge handful the entire time I was in the hospital. She had a good excuse, though; she was teething and hadn't been feeling well, so my parents had the daunting task of taking care of a somewhat sick and cranky toddler. (We couldn't have done this without them; they've done so much to take care of us and make this experience really easy.)

Micah stayed in the nursery at nights and a nurse would bring him into my room when he needed to eat, which was a really great arrangement. He had a bottle once in the nursery so that I could get a decent chunk of sleep, which was hugely beneficial, and he had another bottle at church yesterday. (I'm a little more uncomfortable nursing in public in the states than I was in Nicaragua, but that's a personal thing.) He didn't seem to have any problem with the bottle and then going back to nursing, so the whole "nipple confusion" thing that people talk about doesn't seem to be an issue with him. This is a very good thing because we're planning on Jason being able to feed him sometimes, although we'll use milk, not formula, for that. (I am very fortunate in that I don't have a problem with milk supply.) Okay, enough about that topic for now.

The day after surgery I got up for the first time and was able to take a shower. This was actually something I wasn't looking forward to because the firt time I had to shower in Nicaragua it was a really difficult experience and I was horribly cold the entire time. However, I did it entirely by myself. Hooray for small victories! That day (Saturday) I got up and walked around a number of times and felt really good. While I was obviously on some pain medication, the nurses seemed to think I was doing exceptionally well. (My doctor later told me that she thinks I have a body made for being pregnant because it was daeling with pregnancy and recovery so well... when she cut me open she also told me I had beautiful anatomy. How funny is that?) I basically spent Saturday and Sunday hanging out, feeding Micah, and ordering food from the cafeteria at will. And watching HGTV. Mom and Earl came by each day, and one day Jason went home to watch Alex so that they didn't have to bring her to the hospital.

Overall, everything at the hospital was great. The nurses were helpful, my doctor was awesome, and it was wonderful to hear Micah's pediatrcian say that he was in perfect health. (We still can't get over the 8 pound, 1 ounce thing... it's not that that's so huge but that that's so huge to have been in ME!)

We left the hospital late Monday morning. It was awesome to be able to bring my son home only a few days after he was born. I was very cautious at first about basically everything, especially steps, but I felt much better than I was expecting to feel and moving around pretty well. I've been home for a week now and don't think twice about taking steps at all, although I don't carry a lot of stuff up and down, other than perhaps my son. I still don't pick Alexis up and will hold off on that for a while. (Well, I've lifted her a few times, but mostly just to out her in her chair for a meal, nothing more.) Mom and Earl have been running errands and doing housework, which has been incredibly helpful. I feel great, though, and while I'm not running any marathons or anything, I feel as though I'm able to function really well and I don't feel overly tired, which is amazing. As of right now I'm just taking an ibuprofen in the morning for pain. I'll go to my doctor for a check-up on Wednesday, but everything seems to be going better than expected. I'm not overdoing anything, though, so for all of you who worry, please know that I'm taking care of mself and other people are taking care of me as well.

Alexis has done wonderfull! When we brought him home, the first day she was somewhat tentative, but by the third day she was completely comfortable with the fact that we had a baby in the house. The first two nights she woke up when Micah cried around 5:00 in the morning, but she hasn't woken up since then. She likes to look at him when he's sleeping and gets distraught if he cries. She loves to try and give him his pacifier and will bring him his blanket, even when he doesn't need it at all. She also likes to try and put his hat on, which basically consists of her draping the hat over his head, which is really funny. If Micah isn't in a place that she expects him to be, she wants to know where he is, and she'll even occasionally give him a kiss. She seems to like having him around for the most part, although there are some moments of jealousy when I have to be with him and can't be with her. However, I try and give her special time with just me at various times throughout the day, and she's adjusted really well.

And Micah is a round little ball of spunk and cuteness. Everyone always has an opinion about who a baby looks like, but Jason and I (and mom) think that he looks like a male, fat version of Alexis more than anyone else. They both have similar mouths and noses, and mom just showed me a picture of Alexis from when she was a newborn and the similarity is remarkable. There have also been a few people who have commented that he looks like his uncle, my brother. Mom said that Micah reminds her of Jason because of how strong Micah is and how alert and attentive he is. He really does watch things, which is pretty amazing to me. He's going through a little growth spurt right and has been spitting up a TON today.

And now it's the next morning...

He is a good eater and is very strong, constantly trying to hold his head up and sometimes looking like he wants to roll over. He likes to sit in his bouncy chair, and he tends to like his pacifier so far. He also does a really great job of going to back to bed at night. We have a monitor this time around, so I'm learning when his noises are just awake noises and when they are hungry noises that will turn into crying. I can usually get in there at night before he starts to bawl, and the routine seems to be that he eats, I change his diaper, he eats again, and after a little more burping I put him down and he's fine, either sleeping again or awake and content. Micah is definitely not big into crying so far and almost always seems to have a specific, justifiable reason for when he does cry. I'm really hoping this continues because Alex was a little colicky (sp?). She also had a dairy sensitivity, which Micah doesn't seem to have so far. This means I can eat cheese, unlike last time. He also sneezes A LOT, usually in batches of 4-5, and Alexis has started to say "bless you" whenever he does. And if course, the hiccups. (I can't remember if I already wrote this, so I'm writing it again.) Alexis didn't really have hiccups when I was carrying her, and Micah had them ALL THE TIME!!! And he still does get hiccups all the time.

I'm sure there are a dozen other little things I could tell you, but I am now going to end this email. All is well and we are very, very grateful to have an incredibly healthy son.

More Pictures

2009-07-24T04:06:00.000-07:00

Some Pics from the Past Few Weeks

2009-07-15T06:18:00.000-07:00

This is probably the last pregnant belly shot you're going to get. It's me at about 39 weeks, which was this past Sunday. You can see Alexis' new room; it still needs a few things on the wall (we'd like to do some quotes at some point), but it's come together nicely. Micah's room is basically the same with a few changes.

Two days!!!

The Home Stretch

2009-07-12T14:50:00.001-07:00

It's Sunday evening, and Micah is scheduled to arrive Friday morning, so basically, I have four days left of parenting only one child. We did a ton of stuff this weekend, so what's great is that there's very little left to do this week except minor, easy things. It will be nice to take the next few days and really relax and not worry about much of anything. We now have a very clean house, a nursery that's ready to go, a big sister's room that's basically put together (for now), two completely full freezers, and some definitely swollen legs!

The doctor yesterday said that Micah's head was down and that I was just a tiny bit dilated, so she expects that I'll be able to hold out until Friday. We shall see! I'm in great health and Micah seems completely fine as well, so now it's just the waiting.

Alexis seems to maybe be understanding that there's a baby coming into the house, although I don't think she'll really "get" it until Micah's actually here. She's getting really good at identifying her colors. Oh, and the other week she stuck a pea up her nose, which freaked me out for a little while, but we got it out without too much of a problem. She's been hanging out with another kid who's a bit younger than she is, but we met another family down the road with a 16-month-old named Jack, and they've started playing together about once a week, which is really nice for her, and it's nice to be making some friends in the neighborhood! (They love Settlers, so sometime after Micah is born, we're going to get together and play.)

Yes, it's a brief update, but that's what happens when you're 39 weeks pregnant. :)

Running Around in Circles

2009-06-26T05:46:00.000-07:00

This is Alexis' favorite new activity. I went to our annual HOA meeting a few weeks ago, and she was playing with another little girl and chasing her around her mother, chanting, "I got you! I got you! I got you!" Over and over again. And again. This has become a favorite pasttime of hers the past few nights since Jason came home. We clean up her room and play with just the three of us for a little while, and she'll just start taking laps around one of us and chanting again. Seriously, she'll take at two dozen laps or so before we'll stop her... she loves this game. I'm not sure why. And she'll go the other direction, too, so that she doesn't get dizzy. It makes us laugh so much, and last night Jason started chasing her with maardvark, and loud laughter entered into the equation. She is ridiculous. Then when it was finall time to go to bed, she climbed into her bed, said goodbye, and scooted way down and threw the covers over her head. She then realized she forgot something, uncovered herself, grabbed maardark, brought him under the covers, and then said goodbye again. Our daughter is crazy and makes us laugh so much.

She also just got the Elmo phone back that she got for her birthday from Babu and Bibi. She played with it so much that she ran the batteries down in the first two or three weeks of having it, so we replaced the batteries after her not having it for a while. She immediately started talking to Babu and Bibi on it; I was amazed that she obviously connected the phone with the givers of the phone.

She definitely wants more attention these days, but what's nice is that she can roam around a lot more freely now, so if I'm cooking in the kitchen, I don't really worry too much about her running back and forth in between the kitchen and the dining room. This morning she "helped" me make muffins. I had to keep mixing ingredients one at a time because after she helped me mix once, ske kept asking me to put the bowl on the table so that she could mix some more. I've done a lot of cooking this week, trying to prepare some food for when Micah comes and I don't feel like making dinner. It's been fairly successful, too, which is really nice. I made quiche and sausage casserole, and this morning I made even more muffuns. Nanny gave me a really healthy muffin recipe that can be modified to your own tastes, so I made two different types this morning that turned out really really great! Hopefully they'll be a quick breakfast to grab.

I'm also trying to use these last few weeks of "freedom" to get the things done that I'd really like to have done before Micah comes and not to worry about the things that don't get done. I did some more touch-up painting, (this time in the kitchen and not nearly as extensive as before), lots of cooking, I'm working on our grass although I think final front landscaping is going to have to wait (I did finally get out the 10 inch root of the rose bush we needed to dig up), organize stuff, buy things, etc. I think we have just about everything we need in order to start Micah out, which feels good, and Alexis' room needs a few things done, like curtains and a bookshelf, and then she'll be set for a while until we have time to do a little more in there.

And while I'm definitely wearing out more quickly, I still overall feel really great. By the end of the day I have some swelling in my legs and ankles, which is perfectly normal, so my legs and hips and butt tend to ache by the time the day is over. Micah is certainly still moving, but he's not turning around nearly as much as he used to. I'm pretty sure he's running out of room and starting to feel a bit cramped. I tend to think he might be in the head-down position, so maybe I'll find out next week at my appointment. (It was really nice not having to go to a doctor's appointment this week because I'm so healthy and feel good!) Amongst other things I'm looking forward to, I can't wait until I can stretch again!!! And sleep on my other side! They say sleeping on your side is the best, and the left side is the best of the two options, but what they don't tell you is that sleeping on your right side can help contribute to leg cramps, so I've had to give that up completely. (It's not as comfortable either, but sometimes I just need a position change. That's when I find myself waking up on my back.) I've been sleeping pretty well and only waking up briefly every few hours and then falling right back to sleep, which I really like.

It's about 9:00 right now, and unless Micah comes early, Jason and I will be at the hospital waiting for him to be born. We scheduled the c-section for Friday, July 17 at 10:00 am. It's so weird to be able to do that... I'm hoping to be able to come home on Sunday, but we'll see if that happens. They say three-four nights usually, but if I'm in on Friday morning maybe I'll feel up to leaving by Sunday late afternoon or evening. I'm not going to overdo it, though, and will stay if I need to. These days I'm all about not overdoing things and accepting things that people want to do for me. I am really pregnant after all!

My Little Copycat

2009-06-12T06:56:00.000-07:00

Alexis has been asking for Nemo the past few days, so we're on the couch watching it. The shark started to laugh, and she laughed like he did - low and rumbly and with a sinister attitude. Then we he said "party" she started to bounce up and down and say "ParTee ParTee" like my mom taught her. It's pretty adorable. She's also playing with a balloon that Jason brought home for her yesterday. She takes the bottom of the ribbon and starts pulling it down and counting one to ten, which she can do, but she almost always skips four and five. I'm not sure why; it's like she's decided that she doesn't believe us about three and four, so she keeps going to five. It's pretty similar to her constantly mixing up Babu and Bibi. Even two nights ago when we were looking at pictures, she did the exact opposite. She also loves to copy Jason's cough. Cute and sad, all at the same time.

Jason seems to be getting better from having a monster cold. Alex has so far avoided being sick except for a small cough, and I went to the doctor yesterday and discovered I had a sinus infection. I think I got it in Wilson, not from Jason, because my allergies tend to get bad when I go there and we definitely had some different symptoms. However, I'm on antiobiotics now and am already starting to feel better.

In NOrth Carolina we met our new nephew, Isaac Andrew. (Isn't that a great name?) He's beautiful! It was really cool to be able to be there, and it reminded me of how tiny newborns are! It really kind of made it real to me that Micah's going to be here next month and life is going to totally change. Again.

In other news, I think the even of a lifetime took place on Wednesday. We had a DISHWASHER INSTALLED!!! I've been "testing" it because it's been so long since I've had a dishwasher and I don't really know what its abilities are, but we got one that had a hard food disposal, which is supposed to mean that you don't have to rinse your dishes. And apparently, they mean that. I was pretty amazed because I put some fairly gross dishes in last night and they came out beautifully! I made a casserole for dinner last night and didn't know what to do with all of my additional counter space, too, because we are now able to put away our dish drainer/dryer rack thing. It's ridiculous how much easier having a dishwasher is going to make my life. Hooray!

I am now going to continue blowing my nose, an activity that hasn't stopped since I woke up.

The Non-Saga

2009-06-04T13:18:00.000-07:00

There has really been no drama when it comes to the transition from a crib to a toddler bed. Hooray! Alex has been amazing about staying in bed, and last night I stopped checking on her in the middle of the night. She has done a great job of actually staying in bed, which is wonderful. For now, at least, she's completely fine. We'll have to see how it is when everything else is in her room. However, she has taken naps with all of her toys in her room, and she's done FINE with that! This afternoon I even put her in her room and told her it was naptime, and she went directly to her bed and went to sleep. My daughter is AWESOME!!!

She actually got really sick yesterday and took two long naps and had a fairly high fever. However, we're pretty sure now that it was simply a teething situation because she's mostly better today but has been indicating that her mouth hurts some. This is good news; I really didn't want a sick child right now. She's currently eating some cheerios and saying ow and putting her finger in her mouth like her gums hurt.

She has also started "reading" signs around town, which apaprently I did as a kid. (I imagine all kids do this.) She identified the S in Lowe's and Kohl's today, along with other letters, and when we were stopped at a light she just started reading letters off of a sign that she could seen.

My doctor's appointment today went well. The doctor wasn't sure what position Micah's in. He had a really fast heartbeat this time, which isn't a problem, but he calmed down a little bit while she waited. He was prett active and kicking around while she was checking him out. It looks like most likely I'm going to have a c-section. We have yet to be able to get a copy of my surgical records from Nicaragua, and they can't do a regular birth without them, so unless we can get a copy by my next appointment in two weeks, I'll have a c-section. What I DIDN'T know was that they'll schedule it! They'll schedule me next time so that I can be on the calendar. It's very odd to think about not "going into labor" like last time, when I was scheduled but went into labor anyway. Micah could still come earlier than the schedule, but we shall see. (All of this is assuming that we DO have to do a c-section.)

Two Down, Zero to Go?

2009-06-02T03:33:00.000-07:00

Last night she didn't cry at all. She got out of bed a few times to look out the window before she went to sleep, but I stuck my head in each time and gently but firmly told her that it was bedtime and she needed to stay in bed. That happened three times I think, and she fell asleep about 8:20 again. She was still in bed when I checked on her around midnight, and she was still in bed when she woke up this morning.

So far, so good! The bigger test will be when we take her gate off and put other things in her room. Maybe we'll start that next week. So far, though, I'm very pleased.

1 Down, 364 More to Go

2009-06-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

HOPEFULLY this is not the case. Actually, I'm am VERY pleased. I am referring to the "big" transition from a crib into a toddler bed. Yes, we started tackling this monster last night. Our approach? Try and try again to see what works. :)

In reality, Alexis did a great job last night. She ended up not taking a nap yesterday afternoon, although she did rest in her crib for that time. So we figured she was pretty tired anyway. We put her down a little after 7:30, which is her pretty normal bedtime. We thought that the best idea would be to take everything out of the room except for her bed and her favorite friends to sleep with - no toys, no curtains or other decorations (we waited to put anything else up), basically no distractions. We also thought that what we would do is put the gate up at the door so that she couldn't get out of the room, and in a while we'll transition to putting the gate at the top of the stairs and closing all the doors so she doesn't go downstairs or get into other places. That's how we decided to try things.

Well, Alexis was adorable. She got all excited earlier in the day when we were showing her the big girl bed, and before bed she simply crawled in under the covers and tucked mardvaark in with her and was saying night night. All signs were good! Then we left, and she got sad. And then really sad. And then tragically sad. Jason went to be with her and she just cried and cried and cried. I joined after a while, and then we left for probably about ten minutes, letting her calm herself down a little and then start crying again and continuing the cycle for a little while. Jason went up again for a shorter period of time but still trying to comfort her and let her know everything was fine but that she was a big girl and she had to stay in bed. Then the leaving, the crying and not crying again, and I went up for a very brief period of time. She needed a diaper change, so I gave her one, and I did the whole explanation, kiss and hug and goodnights and put her back to bed, and she cried some more, and then she started to calm down. I left about 8:15 and we said we wouldn't go back for a certain period of time because we're trying to encourage her to self-adjust (I guess that's how you could say it). Anyway, by 8:25 she was out, sleeping on the bottom half of her bed, but asleep in the right direction. I was pretty impressed.

And yes, at some point in the evening she got herself out of bed... I woke up at 12:30 and went to go check on her, and although we hadn't heard anything, she has crawled out of bed and been sleeping on the floor for a while. (She was still in bed when we went to sleep, which wasn't too much after her.) I put her back in the bed, and it appears that she slept the rest of the night with her head on her pillow (kind of) and actually in bed. We got her up at 6:30.

Overall, I think I'm pretty impressed. At least for the first night. We'll see how naps and the other nights go. :)

Home Improvements and Professional Athletes

2009-05-22T03:46:00.001-07:00

We have done so much to the house in the past few weeks! It's been almost all outside, which is great, because the outside still kind of looked like an abandoned home. Dad came and painted Alex' new room and power-washed the back of our house and the fence, which looks so much better now. We had some painters come and paint the front of the house after that. THAT was an interesting experience because of all of the back-and-forth communication about it, and I had to keep going back and double-checking their work. However, when it was finally done, it looked SO MUCH BETTER! Previously the columns had been all chipped away and someone had attempted to paint the siding with disastrous results because they the right paint wasn't used, and overall it just looked horrible. So THAT was taken care of. Then mom and Earl were around because mom had some training, so Earl and I (I refer to "we" loosely because he did the huge majority of work and I made blts...) did the landscaping part. We built a retaining wall the first day and filled it with dirt, good dirt, hostas, a maple, and mulch. IT LOOKS SO GREAT!!! I feel like our neighbors don't have to be ashamed of us anymore. :) Jason and I are going to take care of the right side of the steps and build a small portion of wall there, too, and probably put a maple in there as well. Before it was mostly a barren area with a chaotic lump of a few plants, and now it has patriot and June hostas and a sharp's pygmy maple in it. We're also going to put a cross to the right of the maple, although it's not in the pictures. The next day we went to the backyard. I took care of working on some of the trimwork that surrounded our sliding glass doors. (Earl, I filled it with more wood filler and painted over it, hooray! I might do one more coat - already done two after the Kilz - but it looks so much better.) He created a drainage system for us because we've had some flooding problems in the back. We now have a defined area around our ac unit that is filled with sand and covered in rocks to help with the water, and we have the same rocks under our gate, another area that was a mini-lake. He dug a trench bordering one side of our gate and laid black piping that attached to our gutter and talked to our neighbor because his run-off goes directly into our yard. So far, so good. While it hasn't rained, we have a problem with our hose faucet back there,. Previously the area would have started to flood after I tried to fill up her pool because of the leaking, but this time around it just produced wet rocks. Hooray! Okay, so I'm a little excited abut my new house... lol.

In kid news, Alexis has decided that she wants to stay up until about 10:00. This is not good news, and I'm going to blame Babu and Bibi. Okay, maybe not, but for two days after she saw them, she didn't want to go to bed at all. Alexis also keeps mixing up their names and has it set in her mind that Babu is Bibi and Bibi is Babu. It's pretty adorable and funny. When Earl and Alex and I went to Home Depot to get stuff, she basically refused to let him out of her sight, and each morning when he was here, and for the two mornings after that, she would ask for them when she first got up. She was asleep last night a little after 8:30 I think, so hopefully she's getting over this stage. We shall see.

I went to the doctor again yesterday and all is fine. She thinks that they weighed me inaccurately last time around, because if we trusted the records, I would have lost six pounds or so, which doesn't make sense. Two weeks ago I weighed 147, and this week I wehged 141. She thinks it was just a mistake, especially considering that the previous weight would have meant I gained about tenpounds in a month, which is a lot. So my weight is good, Micah's heartbeat is incredibly strong and steady and healthy, and she said I have the blood pressure of an athlete! (I thought that part was particularly funny.) She also answered some questions about when I call to go to the hospital and traveling and a few other small things. One significant issue is that we're trying to get my surgical records from our hospital in Nicaragua. Withouth them, a c-section is automatically done because the outside of an incision doesn't necessarily tell you what the inside of an incision was like, so they can't take any chances on a vaginal birth. We'd like to try it the normal way, but we have to have a records to even have a chance at that. We'll see what happens.

On a revision note (I'm adding this later), Alexis ate cheerios in milk this morning for breakfast. Disgusting, but she liked them, and it's yet another thing I'm going to blame on Earl. ;) Also, she randomly just started saying happy and sad and acting each one out. It was unbelievably cool!

And Some Videos

2009-05-11T04:08:00.001-07:00

I haven't had a lot of luck uploading videos lately, but I'm going to try and include a few here.

Lots of Pics

2009-05-11T03:13:00.000-07:00

I'm uploading lots of recent pics for you. Alexisis doing just fine according to her doctor. She weighs about 24 pounds and is about 32 inches tall, and while she's small, that's not a problem. The doctor also identified a skin condition that she has (I can't remember the name of it) that causes the little (sometimes red) bumps she has on her arms and legs sometimes. Most likely she'll always have that, but there are things we can do to make them go away if she's using them. However, right now, most likely we won't use any medication. Perhaps when she's a bit older. My appointment went well, and I should get the results of my glucose test this week. Dad came up for a few days and did a TON of work, so Alexis' new room is painted, he powerwashed the back of our house AND our fence, which looks amazing now, and did other random things like babysit and clean our oven. How amazing is that? I feel like all he did was work, but it was a huge blessing. Jason and I actually went to a movie on Friday night - Star Trek - and yes, it was pretty awesome! We did a ton of other stuff this weekend, including cleaning gutters. (My husband is wonderful!) And we played in the backyard as you'll be able to see from pictures. Jason tried to teach her to play baseball!

What I love about the picture of her sleeping is that she feel asleep on her floor on the blanket that I had when I was a baby...

The Bangs

2009-05-04T07:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, Alexis now has bangs. She's still a really cute kid, but they don't look the best. However, we had to do something, and hair accessories weren't working for her. Her hair is just so fine that, alas, there's not much we can do with it. I'll take some pictures and post them later on.

We'll also have to post a few pictures of the zoo! We went on Saturday. She was a little tired, but she had a lot of fun, even when she was on Jason's shoulders and resting her chin on his head. Her favorites that we saw were the emu, the mongoose, and the golden tamarins, which she liked last time. She was also pretty interested in the primates that were moving around. And then there was this ant that totally captureed her attention, but it wasn't part of the zoo... :) OH and she really thought the naked rat moles were fascinating as well as they crawled and fought their way through the tunnels. The mongoose was the best, though, along with some ferret-like prairie dogs (can't remember the name) that she went running to when she saw them. They were all skittering about and were right on her level and moving a lot, so she definitely liked those. She wasn't as fascinated by the panda bear that we saw, but Jason and I thought it was AWESOME! It was about as close as it could be, sitting on a slope, munching on its lunch of bamboo. It was pretty amazing. Alexis did, however, get to tought the nose of a donkey, and was really fascinated by hearing a real cow. I think she ate half a sleeve of crackers while we were there.

This morning I heard her say booger for the first time, which was really funny, although I've been informed that Jason's heard it before. She's doing really well with her alphabet and can identify and say A, B, C, D (she says b sometimes), E, S, T, U, and Y. I don't know WHERE she learned some of those, but I have a tshirt that has the word university on it, and one morning she just pointed to the u and y and identified them correctly. It's always pretty cool to discover that she knows things when youhave no clue. She's not good with numbers yet, but she does pretty well with some shapes. We hear her trying to count sometimes, but she mixes everything up. For instance, she just tried to count some stars, and it sounded like 1, 2, 5, 9, 10. It's cute.

Overall, I'm pretty encouraged with her progress. She goes to the doctor on Wednesday for her two year checkup, so I'm sure I'll find out all sorts of stuff about how she's doing. Pics to come.

My Brave Girl

2009-05-01T03:36:00.001-07:00

Alexis got stung by a bee yesterday! She had been in the rec room for about five minutes yesterday afternoon when I heard a sharp cry of pain and immediately knew something was wrong. At first I thought she had caught her fingers in one fo the doors on her play kitchen, but then I knew it had to be worse than that. I looked around and saw a bee near her ball pit, killed it, and immediately took her upstairs to wash her hand and research what to do in case she was allergic and would have problems. She was crying so hard and holding her hand out, but she started laughing a little bit when she got to run it under the water. She did NOT like having an ice pack applied to it and I had a really hard time keeping one on so just did the best that I could. She was so great about it, though, but I could tell when the pain would come back because she would hold her had to her stomach and start crying some. It wasn't a fun afternoon for her, but she did really well and was really brave. it was pretty red and swollen on her thumb, where she was stung, for a few hours, but then it started to die down, and this morning it's just a little red. The saddest part was that it was on the thumb that she sucks, and up until last night she would try to put her thumb in her mouth occasionally and then start crying because it hurt! How sad is that to have your course of comfort taken away? I was prepared for her to have a bad night because of it, but she did fine all night - just a little fussy getting to sleep - and she seems not to notice it this morning.

In other cute and unpainful news, we went to Richmond overnight to look at some plants, and Alex sat on the tractor and pretended to drive, which was so cute! She explored all of the plants and picked up handfuls of dirt and got soaked by the hose and had a blast! She also had a huge amount of fun runnung around the grocery store with Nanny and Papaw the next day. The other night at dinner she did the greatest thing and started pulling practical jokes on us. She was in her high chair and we were almost done with dinner when she put her head down on her table and started to look upset and sad. Both Jason and I asked what was wrong, and after a minute she popped back up all smiles and started laughing. She had tricked us! And she did this over and over and over again because we kept asking her in a concerned voice what was wrong, and she kept tricking us! She thought this was hysterical and had a few times when she couldn't hold the smile in while she was pretending to be sad. It was adorable! And yesterday she was sitting on the kitchen floor when she looked at the dishwasher, which is fairly reflective, and she waved at herself and said, "Hi me!" I just laughed and laughed because it was so cute! Jason had seen her do this in the mirror before, but it took me by surprise. She's amazing!

We both have doctor's appointments next week. She has her two year check-up, so I've started a short list of questions to ask, and I have my seven month checkup next week, which will apparently take longer than usual because I have to have a glucose test, which is normal for this time in the pregnancy. I'll also probably ask what to expect when I go into labor and she's born because my experience with Alex was so different. For instance, it's going to be very different to be able to try and feed her immediately because last time I didn't get to hold her for over a week after she was born, and it was longer for Jason. It's time to start to be prepared! I can't believe this is happening in less than three months!

We're also (hopefully) going to be finishing up some work on the house this month. We have painters coming to paint the front of the house next Monday, which should make the front look a LOT better! They're hoping to be able to get it done in one day, which would be nice. Dad is coming to visit next week and he's going to paint Alexis' new room and he's bringing his power washer and we're going to was the back of the house, which needs it. Then, about a week and a half later, Earl is going to come help fix some of our drainage problems in the backyard and help with some landscaping in the front. I don't think we'll be able to get it all done, but we're going to put quite a dent in it. And while there will still be PLENTY of things to do, I think after this is done I'll feel really good about the house. Then we'll decide if we're actually going to do some kitchen renovations like new counters, sink, and dishwasher. (Having a dishwasher with two kids would be AMAZING, so it's something we're thinking about.) May has become a really busy month, and then in early June we're going to Wilson to visit our new nephew who should have arrived by then, but after that I'm staying home for the month before Micah's born. I think it will be really good for the three of us to have some downtime without anything going on before he arrives. Micah's moving around a lot and letting me know he's around, and I'm definitely to the stage of picking things up with my toes and finding it more difficult to be comfortable. However, in all reality, I feel really great! I get tired more easily so do things a little at a time and try not to wear myself out, but it's wonderful to feel so good. My stomach surges seem to have disappeared, and my back hasn't been hurting at all like it did for a while, which is great, and even though I have a few things here and there, I think I'm doing well! Also, on a random note, if you're interested, we have a brief list of some things we'd like for Micah. If you go to my amazon wishlist, on the left side you'll see a section for other of my wishlists, and Micah Nathanael is listed, as well as Alexis for her birthday. Anyway, there aren't a lot of things that we need because we have a lot of stuff, but there are a few things that would be nice if you're interested!

Maardvark Speaks to Me

2009-04-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

Alexis is currently standing next to the desk and making maardvark talk. She started this about a week ago, and usually his voice is fairly gentle. In an attempt to gain my attention, though maardvark is indoor screaming at me. (He also prays and plays peek-a-boo.) It's a pretty cool thing to see. Alexis' language is exploding, which is wonderful. The main problem, though, is that when she puts two words together on her own, the first word usually consists of "my" and the second word has something to do with daddy. Never mommy. It's all about "my daddy" right now. Occasionally she'll say something else with two words that she puts together on her own. I wasn't there to see it, but apparently she stubbed her toes yesterday morning. Jason said she looked down at her foot and tragically stated, "My toes!" I wish I had seen that. She'll just come out with words I didn't know she knew, like asking me to open the lid to the trash can. She says amen pretty consistently now after we pray, she's learning please but doesn't do too well with thank you, and she still likes to make animal noises more than saying the name of the animal.

We've had a lot of visitors this week. The Silers came to visit on Wednesday and left again on Saturday, and my parents came up to visit on Sunday just for a few hours. Alexis loved EVERYONE!!! She just eats up the attention, even though sometimes she has a bit of a difficult time decompressing afterwards, but that's not unusual. Mom and Earl came up to visit to attend our confirmation. Yes, we are now officially Anglicans! It was a short ceremony that was part of the main service, but it was really nice to go through it, and the bishop who was confirming us had my parents pray with the rector and vestry, which was cool. At the very end when everyone was welcoming us, he said, "You may now kiss the bride!" That had everyone laughing. And then we came home and had kabobs and talked landscaping for the afternoon. We still have a lot to do to the house, and at this point it's mostly outdoors, and they are the perfect people to help out with that!

The next two weeks are failry uneventful, which is needed, and then we have more visitors (hooray!) and Jason will be gone for two weeks at the end of May. Yes, Nanny, I will be coming to Richmond to visit at some point during that time! I'll even bring my daughter so that you can hang out with her. ;)

Everything with Micah seems fine, Alex is doing well, although it's hard to believe that she's almost two, which means I'm almost thirty, and that's probably harder for me to believe.

Alex is currently having a hissy fit. I think she's just tired and in recovery form all the visitors, so I'm going to go give her lunch and put her down for an early nap.

New Tooth

2009-04-02T05:45:00.000-07:00

First, apparently last time I forgot to talk about ALex and the ABC's. She can identify the letter A pretty well now, which is very cool! She doesn't do too well with B and C and usually says that C is B. We're working on it. She's gotten pretty good with shapes, too, and can say and identify heart, star, and circle. It's really cute when she says circle. When we were at Target the other day she looked at the bullseye on the shopping cart and said "circle" - it was so cute!

Yesterday she was incredibly cranky. I went to Panera last night to do some grading and Jason said that he thought he knew why she had been so cranky all day. Another tooth was finally creaking through! I had seen the "hole" where I thought one was going to come in a few days ago, and sure enough, this morning I can feel it. It's on the bottom to the left of the two front bottom teeth. That now gives her nine. (Don't most kids have a lot more teeth by her age? :)

And in small news, I apparently left one of her dresser drawers open this morning. I was downstairs and heard what I thought was the beep of a thermometer. Of course she had taken everything out of that drawer that she could, which was bad because of course it had a box of tissues in it, which were everywhere! lol. The cute thing, though, is that the little things in the drawer - aspirator, tylenol, medicine dropper, thermometer, etc. were all lined up neatly on the windowsill. How cute.

I know it's a little early, but Alex does have a birthday wish list on my amazone account. (This is for grandparents.) There's a lot of stuff for her new room on the list from IKEA if you're interested in helping us put it together. We bought a bed for her yesterday, which is exciting, and after I'm done with this class, it will be time to start tackling needed househol projects like getting her new room set up! HOORAY!!!

My Dada and ABC's

2009-03-27T04:03:00.000-07:00

This morning Alex was on our bed and pointed at Jason and said "my dada." It was so great! It seems that when she puts two words togehter on her own, they always revolve around Jason. Should I be jealous? She's also doing really well walking down the steps on her own or just with my hand. At least she's not crying most of the time when I make her walk down the stairs. She's babbling and talking so much lately. She makes a whole lot of animal sounds and, even if she isn't saying the word, she can identify tons of items. She also continues to help out her mommy by loading the dryer and throwing trash into the trashcan, which is her favorite chore.

Micah is kicking a lot more and I keep hoping that Jason will be able to feel it, but no luck so far. I'm sure it will be soon, though. I have another appointment at the doctor's office next week for the beginning of my sixth month. It's hard to believe that I'm more than halfway along.

The next few months are going to be really busy. I have about two more weeks of classes, but after that I won't be teaching anymore for at least a while. (I was offered another class for May and June, but there was some question about whether the curriculum had changed for it, and I'm not ready to tackle that right now.) However, I think it will be good because after I'm done with this class, it will be time to seriously start preparing Alex's new room and going through her old stuff. We also need to do landscaping out front, which will take a little bit of time. Jason will be traveling in May and again I think in late June/early July, and then hopefully we'll have those few weeks to relax. We have lots of people coming to visit in the next two months, which is wonderful and makes things very busy! Jason has the global prayer gathering in Tyson's Corner this week, which is a huge yearly IJM event, so he's gone most of the weekend, and on Sunday our church has its annual meeting, which will be cool to attend.

I'm including a few pictures of Alex at the playground last Sunday.

Picture Updates

2009-03-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

1st tea Party

2009-03-13T06:12:00.001-07:00

Alex is upstairs in her room at the moment, giving invisible tea to a monkey. She's having her first tea party! I set up some of her stuffed animals in a circle on the floor, and she's pouring them tea and giving it to them. It's pretty cute.

Alexis is doing great, and it's hard to believe she's almost two. (I need to make a doctor's appointment for her...) Her language has progressed rapidly, although she still basically chooses when she wants to talk. She says mama and dada all the time, but her favorite expression is "here you go" and "there you go" when she gives you something. Or when she wants something. We're working on that :) She says a bunch of different words, but she understands a whole lot more than she actually says, which is normal. While she does say a few expressions, I've only heard her put words together once or twice, the most notable time when she looked at our wedding picture and pointed and said "daddy shoe" when she pointed to Jason's shoes. It was pretty cool. We're trying to teach her to say thank you, which she's only said once so far.

She's still running around all over the place and doesn't like being contained. We had to run a bunch of errands on Tuesday, and when we went to BJs she was completely unhappy being in cart. I decided to let her roam free and see how she did, and she had an absolute blast! It was a great place for her to roam around because there's not a lot that she can get mess up. Alexis loved it and did really well minding me about staying in the aisle I was in, although occasionally she just wanted to sprawl out on the floor. What are you going to do? Yesterday we had a bunch of errands to run as well, so I let her roam free as much as I could, but I put her in the larger part of the cart now that she's a little older and bigger, and she was much happier than being strapped into the seat part. She's just getting to be such a little kid and no longer a baby. She can even walk down the steps by herself, although she doesn't do it very often. She still has little tantrums when I won't take her down the steps, and she can spend way too much time getting up the steps because she likes to sprawl out on them or the landing. She's got to learn, though, because I can't carry her and a kid up and down the steps all the time. She has really enjoyed having more freedom around the house, especially being in the kitchen while I'm making dinner or doing dishes. She still likes to grab things, but she does a good job for the most part of doing what she's supposed to. (We're trying to instill in her early on a sense that she needs to do what we tell her so that she can learn that's how things are done and can discipline herself. We'll see how that goes, but so far people who take care of her seem to think that she's really well-behaved.) Who knows what Micah will be like?

And now on to Micah Nathanael. Yes, when I sent out the original information I misspelled his middle name, but what can you expect when I haven't looked at the name in over two years? I think everyone knows, but Micah is after Micah 6:8, and Nathanael is from the NT when Jesus says he's an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. The ultrasound from last week said he's right on track and weighs 12 ounces and is due July 19. I definitely look pregnant now! I have a lot more energy than I did the first semester, which is totally normal. However, I still have had a few episodes of morning sickness in my second trimester, but hopefully those instances are over. Next month we're going to start setting up Alexis' new room so that she can move out of the nursery and Micah can move in. I started feeling the flutterins a few weeks ago, but I can now feel full-fledged, tiny kicks and punches, which is probably my favorite part of pregnancy. I keep trying to catch him so that Jason can feel him, but it hasn't happened so far. Soon, though, I'm sure.

Things are otherwise going well, but busy as usual. We keep thinking that at some point things calm down, but I think we've learned that life just doesn't happen that way. I'm in the middle of another class right now, which ends at the beginning of April, and then I'll start prepping for everything Micah-related. We have a houseful of people over the next month or so, which is exciting because we'll get to see people we don't usually get to see. Jason has another trip in late May, but other than that this year looks travel-free after that. And then July is looking in the near future! I haven't thought about it in these terms, but Micah is about four months away. Four months ago I was getting ready for Thanksgiving, and that doesn't sound long ago. (After all, we've been in this house for six months...)

Pictures and videos coming later...

A Brief Video of Driving and Animal Sounds

2009-01-28T05:54:00.000-08:00

New Name for a New Family

2009-01-28T05:13:00.000-08:00

Yes, this has switched from a strictly Alex blog to a blog for the whole family. Considering that we have number two on the way, I thought that it would be easiest. We're now at http:.//theedgertonfamily.blogspot.com. (You probably already know that if you're reading this, though...) ON TO THE NEWS!

Alexis is over 20 months old now, and she is finally beginning to talk some! She's had pieces of language here and there, but she seems to be saying a whole lot more during the past week. While sum of her favorite things to say are still "oh no" and "uh-oh", she is saying mama and dada a lot more and identifying objects on her own a lot more frequently. One of her other favorite things to do is to make animal sounds for tigers, dogs, cows, and ducks. She's not great at them (she says "mmmm" instead of "moo"), but it just makes it all the more adorable. She's starting to pick up other ones as well and will even put her hands in her armpits and make monkey noises for a monkey. Jason and I have BOTH been called monkeys, and I've been called an elephant. Should I worry about that??? :) She is also learning to count a little and says one and two. This morning she even did it all by herself when she was placing puzzle pieces on the windowsill.

She still remains as joyous as ever, with a few attempts at tantrums thrown in. One of her favorite times of day is when we pick Jason up from the train and he hides somewhere around the car. She knows it's coming, but she screams with delight every time, usually right in my ear. It's the cutest time! I know she loves me, but she ADORES Jason, as she should. He comes up with the most ridiculous games, liking getting her Elmo doll to puke up fake potato chips and having Elmo and Maardark steal her milk. For some odd reason, our daughter loves to be "attacked" by her friends. The most recent new game was to put her in a cardboard box and slide her back and forth between the two of us. She loved it! After dinner is the time that the three of us usually hang out together before her bedtime at 7:30, and she loves this part of the day when she has both of us or she gets a bath. One of my personal favorite things is when I say I need a hug and she runs to me to hug me, and then Jason says he needs one and he runs to hug him, and she just goes back and forth over and over again. I think the cutest new thing either of us has seen in a while was last night when I asked her where the pillow was (the one her baby doll has) and she found it. We asked her what she does with a pillow and she laid down on the pillow and pretended to snore. It was hysterical. Oh, and ALSO last night after she got into her pjs after her bath, Jason put her on the floor of her room. She waved and said bye bye to us and the proceeded to back into a cabinet and close the door behind her. (This is the same portal to Narnia cabinet, minus a shelf.) We just cracked up! And with few exceptions, she goes to bed with no fuss and gets up a little after 6:00 am. It works out well.

Alexis also continues to do well with EVERYONE! She doesn't have a bit of stranger anxiety (she can be a bit shy occasionally if she's tired or overwhelmed), and she loves being in the nursery at church and apparently is always a joy to have there. She loves meeting new kids and staring at them, and you could tell at Christmas that she recognizes other important people in her life. She had a blast at Christmas and did a really great job during a very long trip, although with two kids next year I don't think there's any way we're going to be gone for eight nights like we were this past year. She has had a blast playing with the toys she got at Christmas from everyone!

She's still small, but she eats well and sleeps well, and we don't have any reason to worry. I'm doing some research about potty training because my HOPE is that she'll be mostly potty-trained by the time number two comes along. We'll see if that happens. We've also been checking out craigslist for furniture for her new room, because she'll move next door. We'd like to just get her a toddler bed, but part of me is afraid that it won't work out because she's too small or will just be too young to be out of her crib when she has just turned two. We'll figure it all out, though.

Alex is great, and I'm starting to feel better. So far this week I haven't had any real stomach issues, which is nice. For a while, I was getting them pretty consistently around 10 and 5. I've also been eating something about every two hours this week, so that might be helping as well. I have my next appointment on the 4th of February, and then hopefully in March we'll find out if it's a boy or a girl! Since I had such significant problems last time, the doctor is going to do an extra special ultrasound on me to check me out really well.

The house has really come together, although we've both realized that owning a home takes a lot more work than renting an apartment. (Yes, we were prepared for that, but it's still a lot of work.) We're planning an official work this Saturday to try and knock out some final small things that we need to do, and once spring rolls around we're going to have to figure out what to do with the yard. We love owning a home, though, and daily feel so blessed to have bought when we did and where we did. The area has been great as well, even if some things are a little further away. Ultimately, though, we like being out of the city right now.

Work has been going well with Jason, and it looks like he'll take fewer trips this year. He's going to Guatemala in February but isn't sure when his other trips will be. (He's NOT going to be traveling after early July, though; I'm due July 20th!!!) I've got another class beginning in March - Rhetorical Patterns in Writing - but after that we're going to have to figure out if I can really manage to teach with a newborn and a toddler, especially because I believe there are going to be some significant curriculum changes to the English courses at Eastern. (Good changes from what I understand, but it will take a lot more time to prep for classes at the beginning.) So who knows?

And that's basically life for now. Life is good. We're very happy and are looking forward to this year! (How's that for a nice generic way to end the blog?) Oh, and there are a bunch more pictures on my facebook page.

Finally a New Post

2008-10-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the time lapse...

Alexis Grace Edgerton Edgerton (that's her full Nica name) is almost 1 1/2 years old, and that is unbelievable to me. She seems to be growing bigger and bigger every day because she can do so much. She is definitely asserting her independence much more frequently, and we're learning the balance of letting her have that but also of trying to stand firm with discipline. This becomes hard with situations like eating. For example, this afternoon with lunch she didn't want to eat unless she was feeding herself with the spoon; she wouldn't let me feed her. It was a time when it was fine for her to assert her independence, and she could just get messy. However, throwing her food overboard gives a resounding no from us, and sometimes a slap on the hand for reinforcement. (Not in an abusive way... :) It's a difficult balance to try to find, but I think/hope we're doing okay with it.

She still isn't talking much, although she babbles quite a bit and we continue to work with her. She has her checkup in a few weeks, so I'll be interested what her new doctor has to say about her development. However, her language development in the are of hearing seems to be doing well. Yesterday, all in a row she identified her eyes, nose, mouth, head, hair, toes, fingers, and belly button. It was one of the coolest thigns yet! And she has started to give kisses, although the past few days she's been shying away from them. It will melt your heart to get one, or to see her give one to her maardvark or another friend.

The house is great for her, too. In the rec room she now has a play kitchen, which she enjoys a lot, and she loves going up and down the steps, although she wants to do it like an adult. This girl has NO desire to go butt first; she wants to put only one foot on each step. Danger? She LAUGHS in the face of danger. This girl has no fear.

The New House

2008-10-12T13:27:00.001-07:00

Alexis is in love with the new house. She wants to go down the steps like an adult, which is adorable, and she loves having more space. Originally I think she was taking a little time to adjust to her rec room downstairs, but now she loves it, ESPECIALLY because of her new toy. I finally bought her a play kitchen off of craigslist, and she is in love with it. It came with a few toys, and she's in love with the french fry it came with, which is hysterical because she adores french fries. The house has made her very happy, and when I look at her now having all of this space, I wonder how we ever would have made it much longer in our old apartment.

She is babbling a ton now, and using words more often, although still fairly infrequently. She doesn't have a huge vocabulary, but she's good at mama and bye bye, and she'll say other things randomly. She has molars coming in right now and seems to be doing okay with that. She continues to eat well and grow well. Seventeen months old today - wow!

I know this is a short post, but (understandably) things have been pretty busy. Alex is happy happy happy, and was overjoyed to have her daddy home after a long trip. I tried posting a brief video of her favorite new pastime, but it wasn't working, so feel free to check it out on my facebook page.

Getting Brighter Every Day, Until She Goes OCD on Me...

2008-09-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a GREAT day in terms of language. In the morning she picked up her ball and said "ball" without me asking what it was or prompting her, when Jason left for work she waved and said "bye bye", and later in the afternoon she identified her book as well. These are good steps! Hooray! However, today she hasn't said much of anything, so she's just going at her own pace. And a few moments ago that consisted of walking in circles around a few of her chosen toys for a few minutes. Last week I think she did it for about fifteen, just round and round and round... It's kind of weird and hypnotic all at the same time. But she does tend to get "involved" in certain things. She didn't want to eat her peas in her chair, but when we took them into her room, she was all about eating on the go. She would come over to me and grab a pea from the bowl, run away to hide behind the door and eat it, and then come back for another one, repeating the cycle. When there were half a dozen peas left, she just squatted down in front of the bowl and rapidly put them in her mouth one by one and then ran away again.

I wish I could see adults doing that...

She also had her first real day of coloring on Sunday. She finally "got" what it was all about, which was pretty cool, but mostly she wanted to take the crayons and examine them in a corner of her room. And by examine, I mean eat.

Hooray for More Space

2008-09-09T18:45:00.000-07:00

It looks like we are actually moving. Well, if the inspection is goes well. It's just in time, too. Alexis definitely needs more space to be roaming around, more space to cause chaos, more space to fill with her antics. Speaking of antics, here are the latest ones:

1. Pseudo-somersaults: She likes to stick her butt up in the air, put her head completely upside down, and then ALMOST push herself over. She did it once, kind of, and landed sideways, which was pretty awesome. Jason likes to help her bring those somersaults to fruition, complete with some extra rough-and-tumble time. Which she adores.

2. Toy box play zone: As opposed to playing with the items INSIDE of her toybox, she chooses to play with the toybox itself. She has become very adept at climbing in and out of it, so she like to hang out there, play with her toys, read a book, make a few phone calls... I had to move it from the side of the couch because she was using it as a stepping stone to get on top of the couch, and we're not allowing that until we move and can arrange things more safely.

3. Drawer love: (No, I'm not talking underwear...) I haven't figured out an effective way to put locks on the bottom two drawers of her dresser. The problem is that her skill set has progressed from simply opening and closing the drawers and putting things inside of them and taking them out again to opening and closing the drawers and putting herself inside of them, occasionally semi-closing herself in. The first time I saw her standing in the bottom drawer was a few days ago, and while it is awfully cute, it's something she can't be allowed to do, and I've had to scold her for it. And she did it a LOT today, and got scolded every time. And sometimes when I do it, it's just about the saddest thing you could ever possibly imagine the way she scrunches up and explodes into tears. Then, of course, I take her in my arms and comfort her immediately. These are the times when it's hard, when she needs to learn that she's going to be told no and that there are consequences to doing things she's not supposed to do, and I have to be firm without being harsh. Quite the challenge.

4. Utensils: She had sweet potatoes with her dinner today, and with a little bit of guidance, ate almost all of them by herself with a spoon. Hooray!

5. Stomp the yard: She has figured out that stomping is fun. And clapping. And sometimes dancing. And even occasionally spinning. That's a pretty funny one to see.

No pics this time, but I'll try and upload the pictures of her relaxing in her box next time. It might be a while before I update due to the move.

Stick a Fork in Her and Call Her Done

2008-08-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have discovered the secret to getting any and all children to eat!!!

Perhaps that's an exaggeration..

What I have actually discovered is a way to help my child eat more, and we'll have to see how long it lasts. You see, she has used a spoon (with limited success) frequently, but she's still really had at it, and the appeal of rice cereal splashed across our dining room is limited. However, she has never used a fork. Until now. Alexis' brilliant mother, who in reality is probably way behind the appropriate time range to be doing this, introduced a fork into her eating habits, and she's never been happier! I stuck cubes of sweet potatoes onto her fork, and she LOVED it! The huge advantage here is that while she's building up her fine motor skills, the fork has the ability to maintain its substance as opposed to a wild flinging of said substance across the room. I like forks. They are my new BFF.

In other more pertinent news, Alexis went for her 15 month check up last Thursday and weighs 19 whole pounds! This is great for a number of reasons; it means she's been getting enough to eat the past month and a half, which is almost always a worry for any parent, and she gained good weight, which is great news for us. Plus, she is FINALLY ON THE GROWTH CHART! She's in the third percent, so she's still really small, but she's there. The doctor said she looks fine with everything, and the only thing we're going to watch is her language development because she's a little slower on that. However, she's been really quick with her kinesthetic development and is quite teh explorer, and kids usually develop one or the other more quickly, and that development is not indicative of further tendencies later in life or anything. What's really nice is that, for the first time, she doesn't have to have an interim check-up; she gets to go to her normal, 18-month check up without having to have another one between now and then.

She is turning into quite the toddler, and I am constantly remembering what Earl told me about staying calm and quiet with a low voice. The doctor basically told me the same thing, so when Alex tries to throw a tantrum, which she's learning about, I don't pander to it. She's got other, cooler new tricks than crying for my attention, though. She is saying a few words, albeit sporadically. Yesterday she said the word "ball" twice without being prompted, and I was so proud! She'll also say "hi" occasionally, but it almost seems like once she's figured out how to do something once, she thinks, "Well, that's cool. But what's next?" I'm working with her very specifically trying to name everything and get her to repeat sounds, but she does her own thing, sometimes verbalizing and sometimes not.

She also has gotten into this new thing of now wanting me to lean back, which is absolutely bizarre. If I lean back while sitting on the floor in her room, she will walk up to me and push me forward, and she'll do it over and over and over again. I don't know if she thinks I'm trying to claim her space or what, but she goes behind me to the other side, then back, until I lean back again and she pushes me forward, and we're in a neverending cycle if I would let it continue. Sometimes I make a game out of it and pick her up by her arms onto my back, and she loves that and laughs and laughs.

And while she's growing more independent, she's also growing more dependent. She hugs me now, crashing into me with her arms around my neck, or when I pick her up putting her arms around me a squeezing. I absolutely adore those moment. But then she wants down again immediately to go explore. We went for her first walk today with her new harness, a monkey stuffed animal that goes on her back and clips around so that I she is secure and I can stay attached to her. (Yes, like a leash. I treat my daughter like a dog. Get over it... and isn't a stroller more of a restraint anyway? lol.) We went outside today with it for the first time, and she initially did the first thing she always done when plunked down into wide open spaces. She stands, overwhelmed with excitement, and doesn't move. But then she was off, and it was AWESOME to let her roam and not have to worry nearly as much, giving her freedom and safety all at the same time. Now if only there were something to prevent her from picking up everything on the sidewalk... She made friends with an eldery lady who was outside pruning er bushes. (Honestly, I think she came out hoping that we would come back by because the first time we passed her house, she was looking out of her window with a huge smile on her face.) You could tell she missed her grandkids, and she thought Alex was adorable. But we had a grand old time.

At the moment, though, you'd think that I had sentenced Alex to a life void of love and affection. Yes, she's having a little mini-fit at the moment. Oh well...

And regarding the pictures, well, we've had to move some things around in her room. She wanted to rearrange.

Currently Screaming

2008-08-04T03:43:00.000-07:00

She sounds as though she's having the worst morning in the world right now, although the only reason she's crying is because I'm not in the room with her. Poor kid! She's starting to become much more vocal now in general, babbling a lot. It sounds like she is sometimes saying things like "daddy" and "bye", but it's so hard to know! It seems like her whole world is changing right now, and it's hard to get used to. She eats differently, sleeps differently, and plays differently. She also has two top teeth now, but only one of them is in the middle, which makes her look kind of weird when she smiles really big.

Alex is still obsessed with having me read to her, and she likes to curl up in my lap while I'm doing it. She is also obsessed with having Jason chase and tickle her. She ADORES it! He found a ticklish place under her chin and jaw, and he'll wait for her to come get him, and then he'll attack. Alex will run to me and give me a huge hug and bury her face into my arms. Or she'll bend over all the way to her toes and almost fall over, trying to escape but loving it at the same time. It's amazing to hear her just laugh and laugh and laugh.

She's getting so big it seems like. She has a doctor's appointment next week, so we're interested in seeing her stats, especially because she's been such a picky eater the past few weeks. I suppose that's part of being a toddler, though, and she is truly a toddler. We're going to be excited when we finally move and she has true space of her own for playing.

Any suggestions?

2008-07-21T05:17:00.001-07:00

Alex and I went to visit Nanny and Papaw this weekend while Jason went to Guatemala. She loved running around in their house and had a blast, and she even got to go "swimming" on Saturday night! She was trying to climb all over things while she was there - the high chair, the fireplace, etc. The first time she tried to get off the fireplace she just kind of walked off and fell over, but the second time she figured out to grab hold of something to help her. However, she kept trying to climb onto one of the side tables.

So, this morning I'm cleaning up the kitchen and walk by her room to check in, and she is sitting on the couch, playing with a pair of socks, as content as can be.

This is not good...

It scared me to death, because how is she going to get down? And there's always stuff on her floor that she could fall onto trying to get down? Plus, if she fell off the side, it's a lot further to fall.

I went in and sat on the couch to see what she would do. She cried and cried, which is unusual, but I think it was because she knew she could get up there and wasn't there. I watched her try to get up again, and after about two minutes she used my knee just a little bit and climbed up the couch as neat as anything.

She is now in her crib with a bunch of her toys. The only thing I can think of is to put something on the couch that would prevent her from being able to climb up without being in danger of falling down from the couch. If anyone has any good ideas, please feel free to let me know!

Update on the DQ

2008-07-08T10:21:00.001-07:00

And the DQ stands for drama queen. Yes, she has turned into a drama queen recently. Welcome to toddlerhood. She's actually still a really happy kid most of the time, but she is less content to simply stay in her room and play with her toys. She wants to be out and about, running around the apartment. Literally running, too. She grabbed a hold of walking and almost never crawls anymore, and she is fast fast fast.

She was at the doctor about a week and a half ago and weighed 17 pounds, 6 ounces. She's gaining decent weight, and there's usually a weight gain slowdown around this time anyway, but they're still watching her simply because she's small. All of her tests and bloodwork came back perfectly normal, which was great, and she's now drinking real milk. We're also supplementing her diet with pediasure to get some extra nutrition in her. We're wondering if she might be allergic to either that or the milk, but we're keeping a close eye on her. It's been fun now that she's eating more solid foods. She enjoys most things that we give her and is big on wanting to feed herself most of the time. She's a pretty independent kid.

She still isn't really talking at all, but apparently I was a late talker, and you see how much that slowed my talking progress... She understands some words, and I've been trying to teach her parts of the body. However, she's still mostly content to just babble.

She is starting to enjoy putting things into other things, which she didn't do too much before. She can put a blue circle into the opening for the blue circle, which is pretty cool, and she'll put some of her toys on the shelf of a cabinet in her room. She also has started to throw her friends overboard. She has a big collection of stuffed animals in her crib, and sometimes she likes to pick them up one at a time and then throw them over until there are no more, and then she cries until we rescue them. It's pretty funny. I think what she likes most, though, is being read to. She's really grabbed hold of this in a huge way in the past week or so. We've always read to her, but now she is very, VERY determined to have us read to her. You know how she used to bring toys over to me and put them in my lap or shoulder? Well, she still does that, but when she does it with books, she doesn't go get anything else. She stands there and kind of bounces up and down a bit and makes commanding noises until I start reading to her. It's gotten a little out of control. Jason apparently read her three books this morning before I got up, and then when I got up I read her a number of books about six times. And just now she kept bringing me book after book, and sometimes she'll interrupt one to start another. It's adorable and pretty funny. I think her favorite is There's a Wocket in My Pocket.

She's also had a few new experiences. We took her to the zoo a few weeks ago. She wasn't very interested in the big animals that were far away, but she LOVED the smaller animals that were closer. She was fascinated by the turtles swimming around in the tanks, and she absolutely loved some small, monkey type of creatures with bright gold manes. They were really active and would get close to the grass, and Alex loved them! We also took her to the playground and she used the swings for the first time and really enjoys that, although she wasn't overly impressed with going down the slide with daddy.

Last but not least, she has a new morning time. 5:30. Ouch, right? Jason sometimes gets up at that time in the morning anyway, but when neither of us does get up, we'll usually get her milk and give it to her in her crib so that we can get a little more sleep, and she's usually pretty content with that. We usually put her down about 7:30, and unless we have company and she wants to be out playing, she'll usually put herself to sleep after a series of playing with the toys attached to her crib, throwing a few animals overboard, and making a series of squeaks and squawks before she settles down.

Overall, happy, healthy, and growing up more every day.

First Words

2008-06-04T07:27:00.000-07:00

Alex knows the word book! How appropriate is that? I've been working specifically with a group of words, and book is the first one she's really grabbed a hold of, although it sounds more like "bu" than book. I think k is kind of difficult. We were just playing in her room, and I asked her where the book was, and she looked around the room until she found a book and went straight to it and picked it up and said "bu" when she picked it up. She's done the same thing before, but I realized that I needed to come and update her blog, so right now she's standing at her gate crying and crying because I left.

This means that she is definitely experiencing some separation anxiety. She's always fine when we leave her with people, but she gets very distraught if I'm not with her 24/7. She's learning to cope and I'm trying to learn the balance between being with her and giving her some independence. (She has currently stopped crying and is playing contentedly.) It's a tough thing to figure out, though, because I can't always be with her, but I want to be with her to play with her and talk with her and help her learn things.

All of this ties into her independence. She is choosing to walk a lot more now, even when she's just chilling out in her room. She also wants to eat (almost exclusively) foods that she can feed to herself, which makes some feeding times more difficult. At the same time, though, it's amazing to watch her eating peas and green beans and beans and chicken and other "real people" food that isn't all smashed up. We're still tracking her weight gain pretty carefully, and she'll see the doctor again at the end of the month to check in with her weight and possibly to go on regular milk. I'm always trying to pack in as many calories into the day as I can, and she's having all sorts of fun eating English muffins and trying to scoop up her applesauce with a spoon.

Her language skills are coming along, and she's learning other new skills as well. She has always been obsessed with taking things OUT, but now she's starting to put things in. She has shaped blocks, and yesterday for the first time she actually put her star block and her circle block into the shaped holes for them! It's really awesome to watch, although sometimes she just chooses to throw the blocks at the general direction. It's never gone in that way, although she's kicked it in when the block was balancing on top of the hole.

And her teeth are just growing and growing, and they are very, very crooked! This doesn't give me hope for having Jason's teeth, which apparently were a TON better than mine were as a kid. Her sleeping schedule has changed some, too, and she's pretty consistently up at 6:00 am and in bed by 7:30 pm, although this morning she was awake before 5:00 and hungry... Hopefully that won't be a constant.

Last but not least, I am sorry to report that we have found one thing that she is absolutely terrified of, and that is The Count from Sesame Street. We've tested in on multiple occasions (NOT with the purpose of terrifying her), and as soon as he comes on the screen, she starts crying like she never cries. It's completely sad and utterly hysterical all at the same time.

First Birthday

2008-05-16T06:52:00.000-07:00

Hello! Yes, Alex is now one. And she is still small, but happy and healthy. She had her year check-up and weighs 16 pounds, 7 ounces. Again, still small, but she's doing well. She got poked five times at her appointment, which was hard, but she's a trooper and recovered quickly.

She's walking more and more now, letting go of things on her own and walking instead of crawling. Most of the time she's still crawling, though, and usually only takes a few steps at a time, but she's doing it more and more frequently.

She's also getting her first teeth! She was kind of fussy last week and had a horribly stuffy nose, and Jason noticed a little prick when she started gnawing on his hand. And guess what? It looks like it's not just one but TWO coming in at the same time! I think she was having some pain when it was happening, but she seems good now. In the past 2-3 days we've actually been able to see them poking through.

Her maardvark (don't ask) is her closest friend. Most of the time when we go into her room to see her in the morning, she's holding onto his legs, and she'll drag him around. She's become pretty attached. She's become even more inquisitive and is quite the explorer. One of her favorite activities recently is to crawl under our knees when we're sitting on the floor. She needs tunnels to go spelunking... She also loves to roar at us if we roar at her; it's like this little tiny tiger growl and is absolutely adorable! She also loves Baby Einstein videos, especially the caterpillar at the very beginning beginning. Alex is obsessed with her shoes and socks, pulling them off at every opportunity and putting them in her mouth, as you can see in one of the pictures. She also loves peas and lunch meat and feeding herself. There hasn't been any difficulty switching her from a bottle to strictly a sippy cup, and the doctor's holding off on putting her on whole milk until she sees her again in late June/early July.

And she is still a really happy baby, loves playing, is being a little bit fussier at bedtime but usually puts herself asleep, and is a handful when we go out in the evenings but is usually pretty composed when we're out during the day. There are a bunch of new videos but I have to organize them, so right now it's just pictures.

The Latest Trick

2008-04-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

Alex started to walk on Sunday night. She started out with three steps a few times in a row, and then she took seven steps all by herself. She took a few steps yesterday, and a few this afternoon, and this evening she started again for real. Off and running...

Almost Eleven Months

2008-04-10T05:58:00.000-07:00

I PROMISE that she'll toggle around a whole lot if she's holding onto our hands. The video just doesn't show it, but I thought it was pretty cute anyway. Alex is doing well; she is having her morning nap right now and is going to her first playgroup today. It's so hard to believe that a year ago we were so anxious and scared about what was going to happen, and now she's happy and healthy. And developing so quickly! She can make all sorts of sounds, but DADADA is by far her favorite. She recently started saying bababa a lot. She also recently has gotten into a phase of not wanting to eat unless she's doing it herself, which presents some complications that we're working through. And new tricks? Well, she has learned to open the door to a side table in her room, and she likes to pull everything out of it, which is fine because I put things in there that she can pull out. However, yesterday I walked in to find her INSIDE of the shelf!

First Step

2008-03-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

She has taken ONE step. Not two, just one. She stands really well for about 10 seconds at a time, but she's not walking quite yet. However, I went out this afternoon, and when I came back Jason had taught her a trick. She grabbed hold of his fingers and used him to balance, and then just shot off putting one foot in front of another REALLY fast. It was SO COOL and she did it a bit for me. We tried to videotape it, but of course, she wasn't doing it for the camera. She's not a circus monkey, after all... She's getting so independent, though. She does a wonderful job holding her own bottle now, and she's cruising all over the place, and having lots of fun with the first toy that we've bought for her as parents! (That was pretty cool.) We'll keep all of you updated as she approaches the walking stage. It might be soon, it might still be months. She just seems too small to be walking!!!!!!

Baby in the Box

2008-03-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's only been one day since the last post, but you know how I mentioned that Alexis had begun pushing her toybox around? Well, she was playing in her room, and I started to hear her crying a bit. Not really upset crying, more like not being able to solve a problem crying. Or stuck crying. Which she was.

Somehow, she got herself inside of the box... it was pretty funny.

On a separate note for grandparents and family, I'm posting a list of some birthday items that would be great for Alex to get. I know it's not until May, but I thought I'd go ahead and list some things. If you get her something and want to let other people know about it, you can just leave a comment like you did for my Christmas list. Here goes:

Board books: (Goodnight Moon, Happy Baby Sad Baby, Yummy Yucky, Big Little, The Happy Egg, or Baby Einstein books for 12-18 months old) - We have a number of classic books already, so you may want to ask before purchasing books.

Baby Einstein Discovery Cards - You can usually get these on ebay cheaply or in TJMaxx, etc. We have the seasons one but would like others. Baby Noah, Numbers, Colors, etc.

Crayola Tadoodles for 12M+ crayon buddies - these also come for older kids, but she would need the 12M+ ones. And maybe some paper to go with it - feel free to save old paper so that it can be recycled on the other side :)

Gifts or gift certificates to Carter's. (There's a store close to our house.)

Cherokee blue ocean infant girls plaid shirtdress 12M

If you can find these inexpensively on ebay, there's a set of 25 Baby Einstein dvd's, or a Treasury of 100 Storybook Classics on dvd. (I think amazon has the stories one for about 50 dollars, which is a good price for it but still kind of expensive.)

SHOES! She needs a few pairs of casual shoes.

bibs with a toy attached - Nanny got her one of these and it is the BEST thing ever for going out! It has a hole in the bottom and a toy attaches to it. I think she got it at Wal-mart but I didn't find it when I looked. It would be great to have 1-2 more of these.

She also has a wish list on amazon.com

These are just some ideas! :)Also, if you get clothes, we aren't trying to be picky, but it would be great if you include a gift receipt. Her sizing is so hard to know sometimes, although generally speaking she's running about three months behind. That varies a lot, though, even within the same brand.

10 Months and My First Mohawk

2008-03-17T05:05:00.001-07:00

It's really hard to believe that Alex is soon going to be one. Time certainly flies. Some friends from Nicaragua just had a baby, and when I looked at pictures, it was hard to believe that Alex was ever that small. She's starting to morph into the toddler stage, although she is still very much a baby. Her bald spot is finally gone, she's babbling a whole bunch at different times, and some of her favorite new things to do are blow raspberries, attempt standing up (which she does every day now for a few seconds at a time), putting her leg up when she's eating in her high chair, and pushing her toy box from one part of the room to another. That's a new one from yesterday... She seems to enjoy it, though.

Jason was in Peru last week, so we went to Richmond and Yorktown to visit family there. I think the conclusion is that our daughter is the family dustbuster. She crawls along the floor and picks up any tiny, minuscule speck that she sees lying around, and then she puts it in her mouth. It's pretty funny to watch. She didn't get sick this time, which made for a much nicer trip. When Jason got back into town, she got herself so excited that she wouldn't go to sleep that night and ended up staying awake until almost 1 1/2 hours after her bedtime. However, for the past week or so, she's been sleeping in usually until about 7:00, which is awesome! I've been up before her most days. This is MUCH better than the two week phase of getting up at 5:20...

And here she is with her first mohawk.

9 1/2 Months

2008-03-01T05:18:00.001-08:00

Alexis Grace Edgerton has turned into a little ball of spunk, curiosity, laughter, and delight! We always knew that we would love our kid, but I don't think either of us ever imagined that we would enjoy our kid so much.

First, the stats. She is 27 inches long and 14 pounds, 2 ounces. She's still on the small side, but she's been gaining more weight recently and we changed around some of her eating habits, and she's doing really well. She did get sick for the first time a few weeks ago with ear infections in both ears. She was so sad during that time but is all better now. She appears to be on track developmentally as well.

Now for the fun stuff. She transitioned great into Virginia and did a wonderful job with the "world tour" that we took when we first arrived. A couple of days after we moved we had to take a big trip to IKEA. There was this crazy puppet that she really liked and was inexpensive, so we got it for her. (It feels really good to be able to do little things like that now sometimes...) Anyway, Jason was playing with the puppet with her while she was in the stroller (a new addition to our life which has been WONDERFUL!) and when the puppet went away, she actually looked for it! It was the first time that we really, truly saw her understand the idea of object permanence. Now, she's always looking for things and remembers where things are. For example, we had to move her diaper stacker and simply nail it to the wall because she was she started always going back to it and pulling diapers out.

She's crawls amazingly well now. She's really fast, and if we put her down in her room for one moment without the gate on her door, she's headed out as fast as she can go. ESCAPE!!! It's really funny. She seems really coordinated so far, something she certainly didn't get from me. A lot of times when she's in her nursery she's standing holding on to the couch or holding on to the edge of the plastic tub that has her toys. And, of course, she stands up in her new crib. She LOVES her new bed, except when she wants out, of course. It has so much more room than the pack and play did, and she can crawl all around it and have her toys in it. She's starting to want to walk we think, because she tries to stand on her own occasionally and because when she crawls, she's gotten into the habit of putting her left foot flat on the floor with her knee up, like she's trying to get on her little legs. She loves to pull out the entire contents of her toybox and leave them all over her room, and when she's had enough, she goes to the gate and pulls herself up and cries for us to come get her. It's especially cute when she's in her crib and we walk into the room and she's standing in it. The side facing the door is solid, and she's so tall now that we can see her little eyes peering over at us as we come in, and she gets absolutely delighted.

Speaking of which, Alex is in love with being surprised and being attacked, especially by her daddy. Peek-a-boo is a great game especially when we're hiding around corners and not just under blankts or behind our hands. But she adores it when she's in my arms and Jason will come up and "attack" her! She screams and buries her head into my chest with absolute trust and excitement. Her favorite version of this is actually when he's across the apartment. I don't think either of us has ever seen her as excited as last night. Alex and I were on the bed playing, and Jason came and started to attack her from the other room. Alex saw him coming and bounced up and down on her butt, fell over, and then rolled over a couple of times like she was trying to escape but wanted to be caught. And we did this over and over and over again and she never got bored of it! It was amazing, and she just laughed and laughed. She likes being tossed onto the bed and rolled around like a sack of potatoes. And she loves being on Jason's shoulders; that's the best place in the world!

She is babbling a ton, although she does it in spurts. She was getting really good at both M and D, but then switched completely to D, and last weekend we really think she said "da da" twice, but then she stopped babbling for a couple of days, and this morning she was saying N. Regardless, she's always very vocal and will sometimes have little conversations with people. And she still loves all people. She has a definite preference for us, but she's done really well being in nurseries as we've visited churches, and she's done great with family. And she'll love you especially if you have a necklace, glasses, id tags, or buttons.

And she's weird. Just this morning she started taking her leg and sticking it on top of the feeding tray of her high chair, another thing it's great to have! She can always be amused with a sock, and it doesn't matter if it's a big person sock or a little person sock. She loves them all indiscriminately. What else does she love? Her bath time. She got a little inflatable tub to stick int eh bathtub, and she has some toys, and she has the most fun. We have to take her out because she starts to get pruney. She loves eating crackers, biter biscuits, cheerios, and especially these little Gerber puffed stars that we buy. She also loves muenster cheese, although recently she's been playing with it more than eating it. I think she's fascinated with the texture.

Alex is just an incredibly happy kid, and we feel so blessed for that. She's healthy, curious, high-spirited, and a joy to be around, even though she drools an awful lot.

SHE'S CRAWLING!!!

2007-12-09T08:45:00.001-08:00

She's not very good at it yet, but yesterday we officially saw Alex crawl, and we've seen it again today. While she has been creeping a lot, she now can move her hands while on her knees. A little tiny bit at a time.

And so the problems begin...

Jason found her under the dining room table yesterday, she crawls over the cushions that are supposed to be blocking her in, and she wants to be in motion all of the time. She's also learned how to pull up on things and can bring herself to a supported standing position on her bouncy chair, which she can't really use anymore.

I have no clue how we're going to keep this child contained. She's absolutely adorable.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to upload videos recently. I'm so sorry! (And pics aren't working at the moment either... sadness. Oh well. Most of you will have the real thing soon enough anyway.)

Being a Trooper

2007-12-06T09:54:00.000-08:00

Alex was sick for a little over a week, ending finally yesterday. She started out with a really bad cough, and then she got a really stuffy and runny nose. The col ran its course in the normal time, and she was so great. You could tell she didn't feel well sometimes, and she was a little sleepier and a little crankier, but other than that, she was great. We kept calling her a little trooper because she did so well with it.

And now she is as frisky as one could hope, possibly more so. She has completely mastered the art of creeping, where she gets up on her hands and knees, pushes her body forward without moving her arms, falls to her stomach, and then adjusts her hands accordingly. It's very efficient. She can get anywhere.

And I do mean anywhere...

Yes, she is officially a baby in motion if she wasn't before. And while as I've previously mentioned, we're biased, we think she's pretty smart. If we move her, she'll go back to the thing she was just playing with. She has these foam mats with borders, and yesterday she figured out that she could lift them up and chew on them, and now that's all she wants to do. She's also trying to bust out of her "jail" by climbing over the couch cushions. And actually, I just paused there, and she has climbed ON TOP of the cushion. So much for that idea of containment. Back to the drawing board.

Recent updates - She hates potatoes. She just doesn't like them, and I'm trying to get her used to them without having to add something sweet, because I suppose she has to learn that not everything is sweet. Other than that, she's still doing great with solids. All of those weird head pealies that she had on top of her head? They're almost entirely gone. She is talking so much the past few days, I think a lot of it because she's feeling better. And she is in love with the itsy bitsy spider. It's adorable. She has also become a champion at sitting up and doesn't cry nearly as much. Actually, if I catch her at the right time, she doesn't cry at all. On Sunday she was in a crawling position and kind of turned sideways and sat, which is great, but she hasn't done it again. She is also still obsessed with tags. She has recently found one on the mattress of her pack and play and attacks it over and over again with delight.

It's wonderful to have a daughter who isn't in physical therapy, isn't on medication, and is well and healthy. I can't wait for her to come home and see everyone. We have our last doctor's appointment next Tuesday, and then we leave Thursday. I probably won't be updating this for a while because of moving and Christmas and everyone seeing her anyway, but I'm sure I'll pick up again after the new year if I don't before.

A Few of My Favorite Things

2007-11-23T06:52:00.000-08:00

Here is a list of Alexis' current favorite pastimes:

1. destroying leaves when we go outside to look around
2. pulling blankets off of her face when we place them there and ask "where's Alexis?"
3. scooching under her bouncy seat so that she can have the tags right on top of her to pull on, play with, grab, and put in her mouth
4. having her father or mother gently toss/roll her to the other side of the bed, where the other parent is waiting to do the same
5. having a beach ball bounced on her face (yeah, that seems kind of weird to me, too)
6. getting up on her hands and toes with her butt in the air, then her knees, and rocking back and forth, trying to figure out how to crawl
7. destroying pages from magazines

Six Months!!!

2007-11-14T17:08:00.000-08:00

Yes, Alex is six months old now. It's hard to believe. She had her checkup on Monday and gained a full pound the last month, which is great; she now weighs thirteen full pounds. Dr. Mora again said she's doing great, and next month will be her last appointment with him.

She's developign so much. She's so inquisitive about everything now and reaches out to grab things she wants AND things she shouldn't have! One of her favorite new things is a page from a magazine, but I have to supervise her closely if she plays with it because all she wants to do is eat it! She's still doing great eating and has been practicing with her sippy cup. She still initially just bites it, but once she realizes that golden nectar (apple juice) flows forth when she sucks, she usually gets the hang of it. Everyone still tells us what a happy baby she is, which of course makes me proud, even though I didn't have anything to do with it. Jason is currently doing her exercises with her and she just started bawling a little bit, but what can you do? I think she's going to be sitting up on her own really soon. She can already do it for a little bit, althouh she's really shaky about it. I've discovered that all these milestones that people talk about are really hard to determine. She's sat up a tiny bit for about two weeks, and she gradually increases the time, so how does one know the exact moment a child actually does something? It's kind of weird.

Sorry folks. I've tried twice to attach some really cute videos, but it doesn't seem to want to work. My apologies. I'll try to put a few pics, though.

5 1/2 Months

2007-11-01T08:24:00.000-07:00

At the moment, Alex is sleeping in her bouncy seat with her cheek smashed up against one side and one arm stretched to the sky. It amazes me the positions she can sleep in. This is just a quick update. She started rolling over all the time from her back to her stomach, so now she is all OVER the place. We had to create a bigger area for her with some mats that we have, and she just rolls all over it. Her physical therapist hopes that she'll be crawling by the time we go home but thinks it's optimistic to think she'll be sitting up in two weeks, which is what Dr. Mora wanted, even though it's still in the early time period for that. We also aren't allowed to let her stand up anymore because she's using it as a reflex of some sort, so it's sitting for her, and she does not like it! She's getting better at it, though. And she has started to grab her feet and put her toes in her mouth all the time; it's so cute! She's been eating well and loves her cereal, endures carrots, and enjoys apple juice, which she has also begun drinking out of a sippy cup. I have to help her, of course, but she does a really good job and even tries to use the handles. Lots of little developments that make her seem so big to me.

"I Make My Own Snack"

2007-10-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

We have determined that Alex is a cackling old woman. In the past few days, her continual voice experimentation has led her to a guttural “hghaaaaaaaa” sound like an old woman haggling in a marketplace. While extremely amusing, it’s certainly not ladylike. But this is also coming from a girl who farts more than any creation I could have ever imagined, so who expects delicacy?

Alex is currently chilling out on her play mats with a circular rattle around her upper arm as a bracelet, one pink sock mostly, but not quite, kicked off, and a cloth diaper draped across her body as a toy. This girl definitely doesn’t need expensive toys to amuse herself. It constantly amazes us how incredible she is, how we never get tired of spending time with her, how excited we get about each new thing. Proud parents, right? She wakes up in the morning before I do and usually has time alone with her dad then, happily content in her bed or hanging out with him until I get her and we have breakfast. And at night, whether she is already almost asleep, fell asleep eating, or is wide awake, she can go to her bed and put herself to sleep without problem. I am actually at the stage now when I don’t go to sleep wondering if tonight is going to be the night where she starts waking up in the middle of the night again, and she almost never cries when we put her to bed. It’s a nice place to be.

She also LOVES her rice cereal. It’s ultra-cute when she grabs my hand that’s holding her spoon and brings it to her mouth to attack the food. FOOOOODDDD!!! YEAHHHHH!!! EXCITEMENT!!!!! However, during the past few feedings, she has started something new; she wants to suck her thumb WHILE she’s eating. I wonder if it’s partially a thing of missing breastfeeding some, but I have to keep pulling her hand out of her mouth when she’s eating, which makes feedings a little more difficult. But she still loves it and is getting really good at eating and seems to understand the process. Early next week we’re going to give her some carrots. (I tried a bit of mashed up banana but she didn’t seem to like it to much then. I’ll try again later with a riper banana.)

I also look at pictures of her in my arms and realize how big she is getting. At twelve pounds she certainly isn’t huge, but she’s not this little flopping bundle. She has so much more control over herself, wants to stand up all the time, voices her emotions, and is (sorry folks) starting to experience stranger anxiety we think. All of these things are developmentally appropriate, but I found myself thinking today what I’m sure every parent thinks – my child will never be this small again, and how will I ever remember what it felt like to hold such a small little girl in my arms? It’s partially sad, but it’s partially exciting because then I start to think about when she starts crawling and speaking and all of those other things that seem so far away but are actually very close. But then I’ll be shaken out of my reverie by her making her own snack. Yes, that’s right. She has started to make her own snacks, a very convenient situation for her father and me. She’ll begin to spit up a little bit but instead of it leaving, she’ll just swallow it back down. Mmmm…. yummy.

Five Month Update

2007-10-14T12:41:00.000-07:00

Alexis is growing up so fast! Last week, all in one day, she started to reach out for toys while she was on her stomach, her head started peeling, and she started to dress in real clothes, not just onesies, on a more regular basis. She was in her jean overalls, and they are just the cutest things on her! She is pushing up on her legs all the time and always wanting to stand up.

She had her checkup on Friday and is doing well, although her doctor wants her to be gaining more weight, so she is now eating rice cereal twice a day. She started this morning, and I was expecting crying and wailing and an upset little girl, as all of the reading said, but she was actually very content and somewhat excited about a new experience and adapted really, really well, although inevitably there was more food on her face and bib than inside of her. She now weighs twelve pounds exactly and is getting so much more interactive! She rolls over whenever she wants to, and the doctor really wants us to work on her sitting up, hoping that she'll be able to do so on her own next month.