Compare & Contrast: Bumbo

Not quite ready for the Bumbo
Z at 13 weeks (Feb 2008); Mei-mei at 13 weeks (Oct 2009)

A little bit of sugar

1.  Sucking her thumb during her afternoon nap in the cradle
2.  Showing off her beautiful hand-knit sweater and booties
3.  Hanging out on the Boppy with her hedgehog
4.  Blowing bubbles in pink & purple

Fake vs real

The first picture shows what happens if you ask Z to smile for the camera.  The second picture shows what you get if you wait until after he's "smiled" and he laughs because he knows how silly he looks.  Apparently he and Jammy took smiling lessons at the same place.

'plash boots

Love my 'plash boots, originally uploaded by Wenmei.

Z loves to wear his "'plash boots", because it means we can go looking for puddles for him to "plash" in.

Number 3

This made me laugh out loud. And if they work, I would like to buy a couple gazillion.

Halloween party

Then and Now: Halloween

Z and friends celebrated Halloween yesterday at O's house.  They may be older now, but it's just as hard to get a picture of all of them sitting still.  However, if you could see the entire series of photos of toddlers-on-a-couch, you'd see that the three girls sit patiently while the boys are have to be rounded up.  Note the hovering parents:  last year Holly and I are in position behind our boys, and this year Ryan is waiting behind the (boys side of the) couch to grab a wandering toddler.

Boo!

Boo!, originally uploaded by Wenmei.

Z: Don't you know dinosaurs eat pumpkins?
Mei-mei: I'm not so sure about this...

Smiley girl

Smiley girl, originally uploaded by Wenmei.

Rockin' out: Then and Now

Rockin' out: Then and Now, originally uploaded by Wenmei.

Z used to make his own music while he rocked out on Moo Moo the Cow, but now he likes to turn on the closest approximation to a stereo (his musical garden table) that he has.

Big boy

Heading up the stairs to my Tuesday playgroup, originally uploaded by Wenmei.

Z goes to a playgroup in Phinney every Tuesday morning, and he has his own backpack and lunch box (inside the backpack) to carry his things. He loves climbing up the stairs to his classroom and announcing that he's got his PACK-PACK! and is going INSIDE! to PLAY! but first he needs to SHI-SHOU!

All night long

Well, "a large part of the night" would be more accurate.  Mei-mei slept for 6.5 hours last night!  We put her down at 11 PM and she didn't get up to nurse until 5:30 AM.  It would have been even better if I'd gone to bed the same time she did, but I had to stay up later to shower and clean things up.

We've started trying to sleep train Mei-mei, although we're not able to be as consistent as we were with Z.  Not only does Mei-mei not have her own room (her co-sleeper is set up against the wall in our room), but we don't want her to wake up her brother, who is right on the other side of the wall.  So we put her down and hang out in the room to soothe her when she fusses, and we bring her downstairs if she really starts screaming.  If we'd tried to do it this way with Z (i.e. pick him up and take him downstairs if he screamed enough), we'd never have gotten him to sleep by himself.  His sister, however, is more willing to sleep on her own and doesn't put up as much of a fight.

3-4 months old is when Z started settling into a schedule of sorts, with 3 naps a day and a consistent bedtime.  I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to handle that with Mei-mei, since Z only takes one nap a day now and goes a bit nutters if I keep him in the house all day long.  It was important to us to have Z nap in his crib so that he could get the best sleep possible, but I'm not sure if we'll have that luxury with Mei-mei.  She might need to learn to nap on the go, in carriers and/or strollers.  Besides, she doesn't even have a crib.

I remember being pregnant and thinking, "Hm, I wonder how we're going to handle the sleep thing, since we only have two rooms upstairs and Z is still in the crib?  Ah well, I have plenty of time to worry about that."  Well, we're close to running out of time.  Mei-mei isn't going to fit in the co-sleeper for much longer, and we still haven't figured out a couple things, including but not limited to:

• Will they share a room?
• If so, when do we move her into the room in order to minimize the disruption caused by her crying/nursing/etc?
• If not, where will they sleep?  Will one of them need to move to the play room downstairs?  Which one?  Or will we keep Mei-mei in our room indefinitely?
  
• Will we move Z into a bed so that Mei-mei can take the crib?
• If so, will Z be upset to not be in his crib?  And if he is, will he try to climb back into the crib while Mei-mei is in it? 
• If Z isn't in a crib, will he spend the whole night wandering around, playing with toys, and disturbing Mei-mei?
• If we don't move Z into a bed now, what will Mei-mei sleep in?  Would it be horribly tacky to move the pack-n-play into the nursery so she can sleep in that once she outgrows the co-sleeper?

Any ideas?  Other than my dream solution, which is to find a bigger house with 3 bedrooms upstairs, 2+ bathrooms (including one upstairs), a bigger yard with a separate dog run, a 2-car garage (preferably attached to the house) and a finished basement/play room.  In our neighborhood.  For the same price as our current house.

Hm, she looks so peaceful...

Hm, she looks so peaceful..., originally uploaded by Wenmei.

...should I do something to change this?

Found my thumb

Found my thumb, originally uploaded by Wenmei.

And my finger found my eye.

An elusive (half) smile

An elusive (half) smile, originally uploaded by Wenmei.

It's hard to catch her smile on camera. The tail end of her grin is the best I could do this time!

Compare & Contrast: Rocker in blue

Z at 13 weeks (Feb 2008), Mei-mei at 12 weeks (Oct 2009)

Sunday stroll

Z got to wear his new backpack on our walk yesterday.  This is the backpack he brings to playgroup with him, and the zipper pulls are nice and big so he can easily get out snacks and things to play with, like his diapers and spare set of clothes.  He can also get to the donuts we picked up from Mighty O and help himself to a bite or two.  Luckily he loudly announces everything he does, so I was able to salvage the donuts as he exclaimed "Oh don'ts!!"

Chatterbox

Z has always been quite a chatterbox.  It was really entertaining before he had any words, because he understood what was said to him and he would answer in babble while using the correct inflection (for example, you could clearly hear him say "I don't know" even though he didn't use any real words).  Now that he's adding several real words a day, it's even more entertaining.  He's putting words together to create short sentences, combining words he knows to represent things he doesn't have words for, and copying the sounds and words he hears around him.  Here are a few of his latest favorites:

"Bye-bye Daddy work"
"Mei-mei poo-poo bye-bye" (diaper change for his little sister)
"Poo-poo soap" (diaper wipe)
"Wa-wa hose" (watering hose)
"Shi-shou" (wash hands, in Chinese)
"Shi-shoap" (wash hand with soap?)
"Shi-shou shi-shou clean shi-shou!" (exclaimed loudly to a homeless man at Pike Place Market)
"Leaves fall sidewalk"
"Uh oh slow no fall" (when climbing up or down stairs)
"Garage door bye-bye car"
"OK play slide swing"
"Poopah hmm" (mimicking the way his Grandpa says "hmph")
"AH AH AH" (mimicking the cackling laugh of the lady across the street)
"Clean car" (gas station, because that's also where we go through the car wash)
"Ride sike" (motorcycle or bicycle)

And in a disheartening display of 1950's gender-typing:
"Daddy play, Mama cook"

We'll work on that last one.

It's not Maybelline

Hard at work

Compare & Contrast: Bundled up

Z at 12 weeks (Feb 2008); Mei-mei at 10 weeks (Oct 2009)

The Great Pumpkin Hunt

Some privacy, please?

Teamwork

Z: C'mon Mei-mei, I'll spring you outta this car seat and we'll go find some cookies! Oh...hi Mama.

Mei-mei: I have nothing to do with this. I was just sitting here.

Grounded

I'm not sure if Z is acting out because of Mei-mei being born, if this is just a normal stage for a nearly-2 year old, or if it's a combination of the two.  But I do know that I am considering not taking him out of the house again until he's at least 15.  By then, he'll just be sullen and unresponsive...which I think is probably better than kicking, screaming and throwing himself on the ground every 7.2 minutes.

Learning to be like my Grandpa (Poopah)

Anyone who knows my Poopah will recognize this:

Long night

Last night was a pretty big night in our house.  After Z's bath and bedtime, things were pretty quiet.  Then Mei-mei had a diaper blow-out, so she got to have an unplanned bath.  After she was clean and warm, we put her to bed.  I nursed her at 11:30 PM and then tried to get some sleep myself.

At 1:15 AM, we were jolted awake by screams from Z's room.  I ran in and found him standing up, screaming, and covered in something red.  My first thought was, "He's bleeding".  Then I noticed the smell, and realized that no, it wasn't blood -- it was his spaghetti & meatball dinner.  All over him and his crib.  Chris came in, so I stripped Z down and gave him to Chris to clean off.  Chris gave him a quick bath while I changed the sheets and threw it all into the laundry with his pajamas, his blanket, and his stuffed animals.

Z was clean and calmer by 2 AM, so we put him back to bed in his freshly-changed sheets.  I went downstairs to finish cleaning things up when I heard him start screaming again.  I raced back upstairs to find him again standing up, crying, and covered in vomit.  Once again, we stripped him down, took him downstairs for a bath, and changed the sheets.  While Chris bathed him, I ran to the store to pick up some Pedialyte.

(Side story:  The only other person at the store at 3 AM was a tired-looking man who was scanning the diapers as I came in.  He found the diapers he was looking for, saw me with a bottle of Pedialyte and a can of air freshener in my hand, grimaced and said, "Oooh, tough night, huh?")

When I got back home, Z was happily tucked into our bed while Mei-mei screamed at the top of her lungs.  I nursed Mei-mei while Chris gave Z sips of Pedialyte.  Z seemed much more comfortable and was chatting up a storm.  We put him back to bed around 3:30 AM, when I went downstairs to run the second load of laundry.  I finally got into bed myself at 4:30 AM.

Z woke up around 6 AM and started talking, and Mei-mei woke up at 6:15 AM to nurse again.  The day had started.  Z seemed to be in good spirits and had a healthy appetite at breakfast, so after 3 pairs of pajamas, 3 sets of crib sheets, 2 loads of laundry, 2 baths, and one trip to the drugstore, things have settled down.  Other than the whole "overtired toddler" thing.

(We think it was the meatballs.  Needless to say, those are some left-overs we won't be saving.)

Not a good idea

Too high for comfort

Too cute for words