Monday, November 28, 2005

Don't fear the sprinkles!

I have to record this so I can hold it against Will when he is older.
We have this video from Baby Einstein for the holidays. I am not sure I understand the fascination, but it is like a snake charmer to both Sophie and Will. And at 5pm (aka the Whining Hour) we are AOK with BabyValium in video form.

So anyway, there are various scenes of kids and puppets enjoying holiday scenes, ornaments, presents, snowmen, etc..

There is one scene where the star (a hand puppet reindeer) is decorating a gingerbread man. Will finds this scene absolutely terrifying. He starts to cry early into it, and when the reindeer appears in a startling fashion covered in powdered sugar, Will totally loses it. I try to keep the remote handy so I can fast forward past the scene, but it is truly a sight. It is probably wrong to laugh at him, but I can't help it.
Will will now start to fuss as the video gets close to that scene even without seeing it.
Sophie is getting in the spirit as well. She will jump up and run away laughing in mock fear from the scene, but then run back to watch the conclusion.

Reminds me of my humiliating sleep over and the C-Movie "Green Slime" when I was a kid. I was petrified. Just caught a couple minutes of that on TV the other week, ah memories.

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Nut..... Cracker

Sophie makes interesting pauses between compound words.
Baby....Girl
Sand....Wich
Jumpy....Chair

Well Yesterday Carly dressed her up and took her to see the Nut...Cracker...

Amazingly she lasted through the whole thing! And amused the people seated around her.
When one of the Sugarplums (or Sugar...Plumps) leapt into the air and was caught by a dancer, she yelled out "Gotchu!"
When the mouse that turned the pages snuck off stage..she yelled out "Where'd it go?"
Then "Hiding!" which sounds more like "Hiney" to me.

Such a big girl.

Monday, November 21, 2005

Advances continue

Will has stood on his own for more than a second! Twice!
Sophie finds it very funny to cover her face with her hands and be fed by us.
Normally we would not tolerate such Tom-Foolery at the dinner table...

You heard me right!

Emily Post rules only...


But, she seems more willing to consume those last bits of vegies and other foods that she previously just pushed around her plate. So we are more lenient with this. Also it is just so damn funny.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

45 minutes

At this rate in a week or two they will be able to sleep in the same room through night.

Missed it by that much.

So we tried outr first co-sleeping arrangement with Will and Sophie nappign in the same room yesterday. I was dubious because both of them have been sick recently and are having trouble sleeping in general. Carly skirted the excitement by getting a hair cut (gorgeous by the way, so she is forgiven).

Will get put down - 10 minutes later - Sophie.
I hear noises from both of them... laughter. While I would prefer sleeping, laghter is preferrable to many alternatives. That plus some talking (mostly Sophie...including spelling her name... did I mention she was a genius?) lasted for about 10 minutes.
Then quiet....!
For about a minute.
Then Will started crying. I could hear Sophie saying "Will No" and similar things. But the crying continued, and I was forced to remove the lad to his old room. He kept crying. And his cries got louder until he woke Sophie again who also started crying.

In the end neither napped much and they were both a wreck. Me too.
We all cuddled on the rocking chair... needing sedation.. I am still hopeful given that first 11 minutes so we shall see.

In other news. Will has begun clapping. His look of concentration and experimentation is priceless. He will stare at his hands and sort of cup them together and look amazed. Then repeat it more forcefully until eventually he is clapping. He has yet to clap with the effortless joy that Sophie exhibits. But baby steps for the babies.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Tool Time

Had a busy weekend.. lots of little jobs that needed getting done, got done! Amazing.
I needed to get up into the attic and fix the ladder to the attic. It wasn't entirely non-functional, it was just hanging there from the springs rather than the bolts... a death trap basically. But I was able to get it fixed and tightened the various bolts, most of which were hiding in a space about a centimeter wide. So using tools in that space presented new challenges. Using scotch tape, and holdin gscrew-drivers like chopsticks apparantly did the trick.
I get more satisfaction from repairing things like that, using my hands, figuring out things, than I do from most other activities.

With the ladder now functional, we were able to move the baby gear Will has grown out of up into storage. It is held hostage to our reproductive urges. Currently, we find two children more than enough. But, something in me tells me we might want more. Both Carly and I are hesitent to give away this stuff until we are sure one way or another. Neither of us wants any more kids any time soon. That much I know. But the house feels slightly less claustophobic with the strollers, exersaucer, car seat and other gear safely stowed.
We also got around to assembling Will's future crib. He has been sleeping in a Pack-n-play for that last few months (after graduating from the co-sleeper). He hasn't been feeling well lately (and Carly suspects the Flu shot may have made him feel worse), so we are hesitent about moving him into the same room as Sophie. Still we have put that crib in there, and moves the furniture around. Luckily my experience with a tiny office has made me master of efficient design. Well that and Carly has measured every piece of furniture in the room, so it was pretty easy. That is set up, and we hope to start slowly moving Will into the shared room (naps first, then over night).
I also cleaned out the Fridge (2 year old Tofu was the endurance champion).

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Re: on make at gender boa

If spam were not so ubiquitous, I think I would have to check out emails with titles like this. I want to make a project of poetry based on spam subject headings, but I am not sure I can make it work in more than a surealistic way. Well, this now is recorded for posterity.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Boons

Go see the boondocks on Cartoon Networks - Adult Swim...go now, don't come back until you have.