Compare & Contrast: Santa Photos (2008, 2009, 2010)

The first one (from 2008) still makes me laugh.  Z was doing just fine until the lady “helping” the photographer started ringing that darn cowbell.

Our very own Zcrooge

Santa:  Are you hoping for anything special for Christmas?

Z (with his back to Santa): <silence>

Santa:  How about Legos?  Do you like to play with Legos?

Z: <silence>

Santa:  I bet you like toy cars.

Z (still with his back to Santa):  I.  LIKE.  TRAINS.

All in the family

Mommy’s hat (from the crazy “hat-a-day” knitting days…pre-children, of course)

+

Big brother’s snowsuit

=

Pure sweetness

  

Indoor wading pool

Subtitle:  “Why we pick up Cowboy’s water bowl when Mei-mei is on the loose”

 

 

Happy Birthday, Poopah!

A few seconds of sweetness

Yes, she has him wrapped around her little finger.

Breakfast conversation

Mommy:  What does a cow say?

Z:  Cows say MOO!

Mommy:  What does Cowboy say?

Z:  Cowboy says ARF ARF ARF!

Mommy:  What does Sophia say?

Z:  Sophia says BAH!

Mommy:  What does Daddy say?

Z:  Daddy says ARRRRRG!

Mommy:  What does Mommy say?

Z:  Mommy says RAAAAWR!

Mommy:  What does Zachary say?

Z:  Zachary says F*CK!

<Stunned silence, followed by a quick recovery>

Mommy:  Oh, Zachary says FORK?

Z:  Yeah.

Mommy:  Does Zachary say KNIFE too?

Z:  Yeah, Zachary says KNIFE!

Mommy:  OK, let’s say KNIFE.

Happy Birthday, Grandma Hill!

Happy Halloween!

From the cutest Strawberry, Cat in the Hat, and Skele-Cow around!

Z's business advice

Background:  We often frequent an area called Tangletown.  There are several businesses and restaurants in Tangletown, including Mighty O Donuts.  One of our favorite places to visit used to be a market called Meridian Market, but it closed last month.  Z often asks about Meridian Market when we walk or drive past, and I've tried to explain why we can't go anymore.  Here's his assessment:

"Meridian Market is very sad.  It is sad so it is closed.  When it's happy, it will be open!"
"Why is Meridian Market sad?"
"Meridian Market doesn't have any money.  If everybody gave Meridian Market some money, it will be happy again and it will open up so we can go see the telephone."
"I don't think Meridian Market will open up again, honey."
"No, Meridian Market will be closed.  Everybody gives money to Mighty O Donuts.  Nobody gives money to Meridian Market."
"Why don't people give money to Meridian Market?"
"Because Meridian Market doesn't have donuts."

 I think he's got it figured out.

Bugging the Cow

A certain little lady in our house has decided that her favorite place to hang out is on Cowboy's bed. And if Cowboy happens to be on the bed at the time? Even better! Although he generally doesn't stay there for long.

And yes, she's dressed like she's auditioning for a role in "Flashdance".  While carrying around a book of insect stickers.  Because that's how she rolls.

My favorite pumpkins

The fun-capacity of a sun tent should never be underestimated

Bipedal Preambulation

Catching up with a few pictures

It's been a busy summer here at raising hill and I've been terrible at keeping this blog updated. Here a few photos to show what we've been doing:

Mei-mei takes a stroll with her wagon while her brother waits (not-so-patiently) for his turn. (Note: I've also realized that his fingers go in his mouth whenever I get the camera out -- unless he's specifically asked me to take a picture. Hmmmm.)

 

Mei-mei frequently displaces Cowboy from his bed while she rolls around and tries to do somersaults. However, she makes it up to him by giving him one of her "head-butt hugs".

A rare hug from big brother. She looks as surprised about it as I was.

1.  Z was very excited to wear his favorite pajamas on "Pajama Day" at preschool. He wanted me to take a picture of them, so he did the same cute little stick-your-knee-out pose he does every time he asks me to photograph an outfit. Chris does this exact pose when he tries on new pants. I half expect Z to say, "How do these look, honey?"

2.  Ahh, summertime in Seattle.  Heading out for a Sunday walk.  Of course, after we walked a few blocks in pouring rain and got thoroughly drenched, the skies cleared, the sun came out, and we looked ridiculous in our rain gear.

3.  Little Miss still loiters around the house, but now her range has increased because she no longer needs to hold onto anything.  She’s also started taking a few tentative little steps, but she’s not fully walking yet.  I know it’s coming VERY soon though!  Time to get her some shoes.

At least he’s honest

Mei-mei:  “WAAAAAAH!!!”

Me:  “Uh oh, what happened?”

Z:  “I’m ALL DONE kicking Mei-mei in face!”

Bottoms up

We gave Mei-mei her first taste of cow's milk after she turned 1 year old. She was not a big fan. When given the choice between a cup of water and a cup of milk, not only would she choose the water, but she'd first shove the milk across the table.  After talking to the Dude (the Hillions' pediatrician) and hearing of Mary's similar situation with Big P, I decided to try out lactose-free milk.  Here's the result:

One-year and family photo sneak peeks!

We just had Mei-mei's one-year photos done by the fabulous Judith of Judith Fernstrom Photography.  She's been doing all of our family photography since Z was a baby, and not only do I love her photography, but I love spending time with her.  It’s a win-win for me!  Here are her sneak peeks (yes, we get TWO sneak peeks…we’re that cool): 

Cuteness Overload – featuring the birthday girl (with a bonus shot of Mommy & Daddy)

Guitar Hero – featuring big brother (with a couple terrific family shots)

I love how she captured Mei-mei’s mischievous grin and the many facets (busy, focused, distracted, cuddly, goofy…) of Z.  I’m always so excited when we do a photo session with Judith – I can barely wait to see the sneak peek.  And I’m NEVER disappointed!

Going for a ride

I have some catching up to do on this blog, but I wanted to give you a little taste of what’s going on around here.  Here’s a photo of Z helping Mei-mei use her new walker wagon.  She’s not so sure this is how it’s supposed to be used…

Scamp

After hearing Mei-mei scream and seeing Z’s guilty face, I asked him what happened.  He turned away and changed the subject.  A few minutes later, I heard him talking to his stuffed dog, Blue.  “Blue!  NO hitting Mei-mei in face!  We don’t hit in this family.”

Have doll, will travel

Hard day

We had a rough day yesterday, but thankfully, things are much better today.

We spent the entire afternoon in the ER with Z, running him through a battery of tests to try to figure out why he suddenly spiked a ridiculously high fever (it was 108.1 the first time I took it, and even when we stripped him down, gave him cold water to drink, and had him in the air conditioned room for 15 minutes, it was still over 106 degrees). He's been on antibiotics for 10 days to treat his ear/sinus infection, so it seemed even more strange that he would suddenly have such a high fever.

Z was such a brave boy, despite missing his nap and not having anything to eat other than a couple snack-sized bags of Goldfish crackers and Teddy Grahams. In the picture, you can see his cool red and purple armband, which is actually a red sock wrapped with purple tape. That was to keep him from pulling out the IV they inserted in his arm (poor boy!). He also had a chest x-ray and was checked over from head-to-toe by multiple doctors.  On the bright side, he got a bunch of truck stickers and a new penguin friend he named “Waddle Waddle”.

His preliminary blood work showed nothing more than an elevated white blood cell count, which they expected due to the fever. His chest is clear, so we know it's not pneumonia. He's in good spirits and isn't vomiting or having trouble with balance or moving his neck, so we know it's not meningitis. Since he's already on antibiotics, we're relatively certain it's a viral infection. But that's about all we know. The doctor will be watching his blood culture over the next couple of days to see if they can find anything else, but in the meantime, we're just supposed to give him Tylenol to keep his fever down and keep an eye on him. His pediatrician will be following up with us today and tomorrow to check on him.  Today he woke up singing, ate almost all of his breakfast, and has been running around and playing all morning. His fever is mostly gone (he's just below the 100.4 degree threshold for an "official" fever) and he seems to be feeling fine. I hope he continues to feel fine and his fever is gone for good, although I am worried about whatever caused him to have such a high fever.

In other news, he apparently finished reading his copy of "How To Sabotage Your Sibling's Big Day" and pulled the ultimate trump card. Because of his fever, we don't want to risk infecting other children with whatever he has. So, we've canceled Mei-mei's birthday party today. Luckily, she's too young to care. But if Z is already starting to sabotage her events now, at the ripe old age of 2.5 years, I'm really curious about what he'll do on her wedding day!

New haircut

I finally got my hair cut, and I have bangs for the first time in 15 years.  I look more and more like my mom every day, which, much to the surprise of my 15-year-old self, makes me very happy. 

Glam rock baby

...plus Cowboy Warhol.

No pictures of Z because he wanted absolutely nothing to do with the crazy wigs (although when I put on the blonde one, he immediately said, "Final Countdown!"). Mei-mei didn't mind the wigs as much and she even practiced a bit of posing and head banging. Cowboy? Well, the poor dog doesn't really get a choice. He knew that one of the wigs was going to eventually find its way onto his head, so he just sighed and waited.

A bit of sunshine to start your week

Embrace Life

I really like this video. What a beautiful and powerful way to share an important reminder.

I'm just going to think of this as a practice run

My attempt to take the kids to play in the water this morning was an epic fail, on so many different levels.

Turns out it's exponentially harder to get two children ready for a wading pool than one.  Even so, I had lunches, towels, a change of clothes for each, extra diapers (swim and regular), water bottles, sun tent, sunscreen, sun hats and a carrier packed and ready to go by 10am.  All I had left to do was to give Z his snack, nurse Miss S when she got up from her nap, change both children into their swim diapers and swim suits, slather sunscreen on every bit of exposed skin, and load everything into the car.  (Note:  The operative phrase in the previous sentence is "when she got up from her nap".)

At 10:30am, Miss S finally decided to wake up.  I changed, nursed and sunscreened as fast as I could and was able to get them buckled in their car seats and on the road by 11:15am.  I tried to call Holly, who I was supposed to meet at Matthew's Beach (at 10am), but of course I forgot my phone.

Since it was so late, I decided to change plans and take the kids to the wading pool at Wallingford instead.  I'd already double-checked to make sure that it was open (thanks to budget cuts, half of the city's wading pools are closed and the rest are only open a few days a week).  We got to Wallingford at 11:30am, unloaded the car, and made our way to the playground.  As we entered, I noticed with considerable alarm that the wading pool was empty.  As in, without water.  Dry.  Turns out, they don't fill the wading pools until noon -- which is not at all useful to a mother of two young children who nap at 1.

I immediately turned the parade around and headed back to the car, desperately trying to think of another nearby place that would have water to play in.  Time was of the essence due to lunch and nap times.  We loaded up again and headed to the Ballard Commons, which has a water play area filled with fountains.

We got there at 11:45am, unloaded the car, and set up camp near the fountains.  Z was a little wary of the fountains and wanted to watch before getting in, so I carried Miss S and stood with him on the side.  Suddenly, all three of us were doused with a bucketful of water, thrown by an older kid who was very close to being strangled by this protective mama bear.  The only thing that saved the older kid was the fact that both of my kids were terrified and screaming at the top of their lungs, so I needed to attend to them.

Completely distraught, Z no longer wanted to be anywhere near the water fountains.  We prepared to have our picnic lunch on the grass instead.  As I carried Miss S to the grass, I realized that she had pooped in her swim diaper.  Anyone with swim diaper experience knows what that means:  if just one drop of pee touches the inside of that diaper, it will immediately burst.  So of course, Miss S peed.

I gave Z his lunch, changed Miss S into a regular diaper and her spare outfit, and used diaper wipes to try to clean as much of the explosion off of my clothes as I could.  I was not very successful.

Both kids finished their lunches, I packed everything back up in the car, and we headed home for naps.  The only water that either child touched during the entire excursion was from the bucket that the brat threw on us.  Next time, I'm just turning on the sprinkler in our front yard.

Not napping

Heard via the monitor, while Z was decidedly NOT napping:

"How you go sleep?
First, lie down.
Now you lying down.
Close eyes.
Eyes closed!
Are you sleeping?
Nooooooo...
Is Blue sleeping?
Nooooooo...
Hello red pillow! You lying down on red pillow.
Go sleep now.
Hello Blue!"

One year later, and you still look great in red

Happy 11 months to my sweet girl!

Stop that!

You are absolutely adorable, Little Miss, but you still need to stop this "standing up" business.  And that cruising thing you’ve started to do, moving from the coffee table to the couch to Cowboy?  That needs to stop too.  I’m not ready for my baby to grow up, so you’re going to have to stop this toddler-like behavior.  (Also, your big brother is not very happy that you can reach most of his toys when he puts them on the couch to keep them away from you.)

Lead with the positive

Heard from the other room:  “Uh oh.”

Z comes to the kitchen, where I’m making lunch.

“Blue pinwheel in playroom NOT broken.”

“Really?  Well, that’s good, huh?"

“Yeah.”

(Knowing there’s more to this story)  “Hmm.  Well how about the RED pinwheel?  Is that one broken?”

“Yeah.”

Dancing queen

Who’s calling?

The making of a father

May 2005: Practice run
Nov 2007: Becoming a father
Jul 2009: Little girl’s daddy
Now: Best father a little boy and girl could have
Happy Father’s day to a wonderful, loving, kind, generous, supportive and fun-loving father and husband!  (And have you noticed how handsome he is too?  Yes, I’m a lucky girl.)

Happy Birthday!

Then and Now: Neighbors

Then:  Dec 2008 (13 months old).  Now:  Jun 2010 (2.5 years old)