Sept. 19: Andrew stayed home from preschool yesterday, and this morning was really borderline. He has such a runny nose. I’ve actually wanted to photograph Andrew with his funny, “I just sneezed big and I need help wiping!” look, but I thought that would be a little too gross for all my gentle readers out there.
I’m hoping that when I pick Andrew up at 1:45 today that his teaches don’t say, “Bad idea having him come today, Mom!” We’ll see. He really wanted to go, and I think that the running/sneezing incidents had slowed from their just-woke-up-sneeze-it-all-out status.
In any case, he’s having fun now, and so am I!
Peace is a cup of coffee and birds at my feeder
Sept. 19: I would be giddy if I weren’t so relaxed:) Andrew went in to preschool today. Sylvia is napping. I have a nice homemade vanilla latte and my computer and an hour or so of totally uninterrupted time (I hope). It’s a cool fall morning, and my bird feeder is teaming with birds. For the last four years, I’ve only gotten the occasional bird. I mostly feet dratted squirrels and blasted house sparrows. But this morning, suddenly, I have cardinals, chickadees, white breasted nuthatches, house finches, downy woodpeckers, American goldfinches, and a robin nearby for good measure. The air is humming with birdy chirps. Where did they come from? How did they decide that my feeders are now a good idea? Who knows, but I’m enjoying watching them. I may even take photos if I weren’t so enjoying sitting in my comfy chair!
After all the runny noses and Sylvia-crying and general illness of the week, this moment feels like bliss.
No preschool today
Sept. 18: I’ve got a runny-nosed Andrew sitting next to me this morning. His nose has been very, er, productive, recently. So we decided to keep him home from preschool this morning. He wanted to go, but he was all right with our join decision to stay home.
I was a little bummed because I had been looking forward to my quiet time this morning! Oh well. Maybe tomorrow.
Sylvie is improving!
Sept. 18: Things are going much better in our home. On Tuesday evening, I started Sylvie on her antibiotics. She had a much better night than the previous three, and yesterday, she seemed like she was pretty much back to her normal, chipper self. In fact, seeing her beaming smile sort of surprised me. Amidst all the crying and the night-waking, I’d sort of forgotten how happy she normally is!
She’s drinking down her medicine well, and she’s seeming like she’s no longer in pain. Good things! Sylvie’s smile is like the sunshine, and it feels good after some very cloudy days.
Sick baby girl
So the last several days have been kinda hard. Sylvia has been a sad, sad girl, especially at night. After she cried for several hours this morning, I made a doctor’s appointment for her. We discovered an infected left ear. So my baby girl has an ear infection.
I debated whether to give her antibiotics, and decided that she’s been unhappy enough that it’s a good idea to treat it. These days, doctors are starting to recommend that mild ear infections not be treated because of the gross overuse of antibiotics. Sylvie’s doctor characterized her ear infection as moderate. If you’re interested, Mayo Clinic, and Dr. Greene have articles about the use of antibiotics for treating ear infections.
Hopefully she’ll start feeling better soon.
In other news, Sylvia waved for the first time today. She waved bye-bye to her dad this morning and to the receptionist at the clinic this afternoon. What a big girl!
Sylvia’s seven-month appointment
Sept. 14: Sylvia had her seven-month appointment on Friday. Actually, it was her six-month appointment, but we’re a little off-schedule because of our health-insurance change. She’s getting to be a big girl! She weighed in at 16 lbs, measured 27″ long, and has a head circumference of 44.8 cm.
This morning, I think she did her first successful crawling motions. She’s been rocking on all fours for weeks, doing the plank and push-up positions for a while too, but until this morning, she hadn’t moved her knees forward. Several times this morning, she moved a knee forward while reaching with the opposite hand. And in the last few days, she’s beginning to move (mostly by oozing or schooching on her tummy). It’s only a matter of time until she takes over the world. And her brother’s toys. That’s where she wants to go!
A long night
Sept. 14: It’s 11:45am and Bryan and Sylvia are both napping. They both need the sleep. Last night felt a little like a Comedy of Errors. I went to bed around 11pm. At 1am I woke up to Sylvia crying (which is normal). But Bryan told me that she’d been up regularly for the last couple hours, and he’d just recently come to bed. She came down with a stuffy nose in the night and can’t use her pacifier. So she was pretty unhappy. We both tried for a while to have her fall asleep. Sometime around 2, I think she fell soundly asleep. Soon after, Spooky (our cat) started barfing on on the bed. It was pretty startaling to wake up to a cat making hacking noises while curled in my arms. So I tossed him off the bed where he proceeded to cat-yack all over our blankets. So we cleaned that up. Then around 3:30, Andrew crawled in bed with me. I dozed for a bit but then decided I should move him back to bed. I don’t want him getting the idea that coming into our bed at night is a good idea. He didn’t want to go back to bed, and it took about 15 minutes and some creative talking (his whale needed him to sleep with him so he’d have good dreams) to get him to agree to try falling asleep in his room. “But I want to sleep with you and DADDY!” he’d wail.
Then at 5am, Sylvia woke up and really acted like she was not going to go back to bed anytime soon. So I got up with her and played with her in her room until Bryan came in to swap out with me at 6:30am.
Sylvia seems like she doesn’t feel quite right, and she got a runny nose. But we all then had a lovely morning with waffles and coffee for breakfast, playing in the sunroom, and some great dancing to first Stone Temple Pilots and then the Nutcracker by Bryan and Andrew. They got a good workout. Now Bryan’s sleeping and I finally got Sylvia to sleep in her crib by holding her until she was sound asleep then transferring her. Life’s pretty full right now!
Magical toys
Sept. 12: Having children often means acquiring lots of new stuff. Kids need so many things…furniture, clothes, toys, diapers, diapers, diapers, coats, shoes. And it’s so easy to find those things cheap these days that it can be pretty easy to go overboard.
When I was in graduate school, I studied natural resources and read a lot about American’s consumption habits. As a nation, we are incredible energy hogs. We buy too much stuff with too much packaging, we drive too much, we live in houses that are too big, we eat way too much. That all might not be a deal if it weren’t that our consumptive habits have such a negative impact on the Earth. And that we’re setting an example for much of the rest of the world that this is a great way to live. It’s just not sustainable! We use so much more energy than other nations. It makes me very uncomfortable.
I try to live rather lightly. I’d like my kids to have the opportunity to live lightly on the Earth. So while we haven’t achieved any milestones in sustainable living, we try to do our part by keeping our acquisitions to a minimum. Yet we’re not lacking for anything. I’ve been the lucky recipient of so much baby gear, it’s incredible. My friends have been very generous.
Looking around the kid’s rooms tonight, I noted the following:
- Crib – hand-me-down from Maretta
- Sylvia’s Dresser – hand-me-down from my co-worker, Sara’s parents
- Changing table – hand-me-down from Bryan’s co-worker, Matthew
- Rocking chair – garage sale find
- Andrew’s dresser – garage sale find
- Andrew’s bed – my bed growing up
- Andrew’s bookshelf – hand-me-down from Terry
- Andrew’s doll crib – mine growing up
- Andrew’s table and chairs – Maretta and Joe’s growing up
New things include: Sylvia’s bookshelf, Andrew’s rocking chair, their bedding, wall clocks, curtains, and rugs.
That makes me feel great! My kids have nice rooms. I love being in their rooms, and they are filled with things I really like. I love that much of the furniture is old things finding new life in our home.
I’ve been incredibly lucky with Andrew and Sylvia’s clothes. In both cases, I bought a fun number of baby clothes myself. When Andrew was little, my friend Vicki handed us down all Alex’s old clothes. For the first year or so, I think that about 3/4 of Andrew’s clothes came from Alex. It was great! Now with Sylvia, we again are getting clothes from my neighbor Kathy and my friend Pam. It’s been wonderful to have closets full of nice clothes to choose from. I like being able to buy some really special items to top off a full wardrobe! Bryan’s mom is great at finding super-wonderful pieces for the kids. It rounds out their clothing supply beautifully.
When Andrew needs clothes, I usually check resale shops and garage sales first. When I find good brands, I stock up. I don’t think his clothes have ever looked “used” (except perhaps when he stain them, but then he’s using them!), and I feel good about getting the bulk of his clothes by recycling.
When it comes to toys, I feel like we have a good balance going in our house. We’re not overrun by toys. Andrew has loads of puzzles, shelves of books, a big basket of stuffed animals, dolls, instruments, blocks, a train set, lots of animals, Noah’s ark, a farm, a garage, a doctor’s kit, dress-up items. His creative and learning needs are well-met. And yet, I really like the fact that when the house is cleaned up, stacks of children’s books, Sylvia’s high chair, play mat, and exersaucer, and a shelf of toys in the sun room are the main indicators that children live in the house. I like keeping the toy madness toned down in our home:)
So now that I’ve patted myself on the back about being so moderate about consumption, now comes the part of the post where I say what I want. I want lots of beautiful wooden toys. I want my kids to have them, but in truth, I want them for myself. Mom told me that she got all four of us kids double t-strap shoes because she had always wanted them as a kid. She knew that she was fulfilling her childhood wish by getting them for us, and she warned me that parents often do lots of things for their kids that are really things they wanted for themselves. She encouraged me to try to limit it to things like double t-strap shoes. For Christmas, Byan’s parents (or perhaps Santa…I’m not sure which) got me a silk play bower for Sylvia. I think it whetted my appetite. Now, I want a fairy house.
I really hope Sylvia or Andrew want it, because I think they are going to get it.
I was looking through the Magic Cabin catalog, and I realized that assuming that Sylvia is our last child, some of the baby toys I may never have reason to buy (for myself) again. Will it be that I never by a cute wooden chew toy? Maybe that’s OK. There’s lots of wonderful, magical toys that are to come. But I started to think about what toys I want to be part of our life before those little kids of mine grow up. In fact, I made a list. A long list. Here’s my $1,000 wish list from Magic Cabin toys.
Join with me! Love very expensive, European-made, wooden and simple and imaginative toys that warm the soul!
I do love these boys
Sept. 11: We got together twice this week with Andrew’s friends Wyatt and Eli. It is so much fun to watch those little guys play together! Wyatt’s a big brother now. Little Clay is six weeks old, and as cute as a button. Sarah, Jessica, and I all went to the Monona Library’s story hour together, and we also got together on Tuesday afternoon for a play date at Jessica’s new home. It’s hard to believe that when the three of us get together with kids that there are nine individuals to account for!
Pictures of our last several days are in the gallery.
Eple Plukking
Sept. 11: Sylvia is seven months old today! Andrew is at preschool this morning, and Sylvia is napping. I got a couple loads of laundry going, and now I’m taking a half hour before a conference call to check favorite websites and to work on a new, prettier fall template. But first, I needed to delete the 30 or so spam comments and do a quick update on our weekend.
It was a relaxing, beautiful weekend, and it really started feeling like autumn. Lisa invited us on an apple picking outing, so on Saturday (after Lisa and Michael babysat Andrew for a few hours), we all went to the Eplegaarden orchard. Lots of pictures are in the gallery. The trees in the open rows had been quite picked over, so all the remaining apples were way high in the trees. Fortunately we had two strong guys and one little guy, so Bryan and Michael hoisted Andrew up over their heads for most of our apples. I made apple pie and apple muffins shortly thereafter. Thanks, Lisa, for a fun outing!