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Why, Mommy, why? Why?

inquiringminds.JPGJuly 5: About a week before his third birthday, Andrew dove into the world of “why?”  I’d been awaiting the “why” stage with some degree of excitement and anticipation.  I had been thinking of creative answers for an inquiring mind.  However, I was a bit surprised to find that about 6 hours into the land of “why” that I was tired out and feeling kind of done.  It’s exhausting!
Here’s an example:

Andrew: Where are we, Mommy?
Me: We’re driving on the highway.
Andrew: What? What did you say?
Me: We are driving on Highway 51.
Andrew: What?
Me: HIGHWAY 51
Andrew: Why?
Me: Because it’s how we get home.
Andrew: Why?
Me: Because we need to go home so we can play with your toys.
Andrew: What are we going to be on next?
Me: Well, in a little bit, we’re going to turn onto Cottage Grove Road.
Andrew: WHAT?  What did you say?  I didn’t hear you.  What did you say.
Me: Cottage Grove Road.  That’s the name of the road.  Can you say that?
Andrew: Cottage Gwrove Woad.  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?
Me: You’ll know where turning onto Cottage Grove Road when we go around a big circle.
Andrew: Are we there yet?
Me: It’ll be in a few minutes. It’s about a mile up the road.
Andrew: What?  What did you say?
Me: Almost
Andrew: The Big Circle!!!  Where are we now.  Mommy, Mommy, Mommy.  Where are we?
Me: The exit ramp.  We’re about to get onto Cottage Grove Road.
Andrew: What?  Why?  Why Mommy, why?

Wow.  Makes me kind of tired to recall!  How do kids have so much energy?  Inquiring minds want to know:)

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Birthday fun

bryanandme.JPGJune 30: Well, yesterday was a lovely birthday.  I got to sleep in a little, my sweetie made me French toast for breakfast, and we had a slow morning at home. Around noon, we went to a farm with our neighbor Nancy.  Andrew had a great time seeing Alpacas, donkeys, a goat, horses, and many doggies.
Late afternoon, we met up with Joe and Becky, Michael and Lisa, Dad, and Terry, and we all headed up to Baraboo to eat dinner at one of our favorite restaurants – Ishnala.  We had a huge meal, including shaum torte for dessert, and we all left stuffed.  All in all, a good day.  And one where I rarely thought about the fact that one year ago was when Mom was first getting some negative health diagnoses.  Nope.  Hardly thought about it at all.
Pictures from our day are in the gallery.

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Bambino birthday at the beach

bambinos.JPGJune 29: Yesterday evening, we had a great time at the beach with all our “baby friends.”  Come to think of it, they aren’t really babies any more.  In fact, they aren’t even toddlers any more.  We now have a wild pack of preschoolers on our hands!
We all met when our first-borns were only weeks old, and now here they are…three years old!  I haven’t seen many of the other families in months, so it was a lot of fun to get together for a blustery evening at Vilas Park Beach.  Kids in attendance included Jaya (and new baby Turner), Cora, Vianne (and one-year-old baby Shae), Anika, Eli, Isabelle (with a baby sister nearly here) and as we were leaving, Max and Miles.
Andrew had a blast at the party.  It was his first time this summer in the water, and he really enjoyed getting his feet wet.  It got me excited about spending lots more time at the beach as the weeks go by.
Pictures from the party are in the gallery.  For a fun comparison, see pictures from their one-year and two-year birthday parties.

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Birthday weekend

smiles.JPGJune 28: It’s shaping up to be a beautiful weekend.  Yesterday Andrew, Sylvia, and I went to Bryan’s office to join him for lunch.  He’s moved from one side of the UW Research Park to the other side, and we hadn’t met a couple of his new co-workers.  It was fun to see his new diggs, and Andrew really enjoyed getting some treats from Bryan’s co-worker, Dawn.
After lunch (Hubbard Street Diner…mmm) the kids and I went over to Uncle Bubba’s to hang out with the uncles for a bit.  Joe ends his work week at noon on Friday.  He’s splitting his time between an internship at the Madison Symphony (20 hours) and work at Gathering Waters Conservancy (10 hours).  Andrew just adores his uncles.
snuggles.JPGSylvia’s nighttime not-sleeping routine is improving.  The last few nights have gotten better and better (it’s easy to get better when she was waking up every hour!), and last night she only got up at 1am, 4am, and 6:30am.  She even then went back to sleep until 8! I’m sure that my children’s sleep patterns are not that interesting to read about, but it so affects the joyfulness of our days!
Tonight we have our third Happy Bambino kiddos birthday party.  Then tomorrow is my birthday, and Terry’s taking our gang to Ishnala for dinner.  Should be fun!
I had forgotten to link to some pictures I took earlier this week.  Such cute kids!  I couldn’t decide which picture to post with this update, so I picked two!

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Our day in pictures

jess.JPGJune 26: It’s 10pm, and I’m about to turn in to bed in an attempt to be rested again tomorrow.  We had a really lovely day today.  Spent most of the day at Jessica’s house where Andrew and Eli had a blast being silly (and remarkably imaginative) boys together.  Janelle, Vianne, and Shay came over, and we all made tissue paper window crafts.  Sylvie took some naps, Andrew was in a splendid mood, and I was rather rested for the first time in a few days.  It was great!  Sleep and time with good friends make for a great day.
Pictures from our day are in the gallery as are photos I took of Terry and the kids last night.  Enjoy!

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Pictures uploaded

momentwithdaddy.JPGJune 26:  Happy birthday yesterday, Maretta!  We missed spending the day with you:)
Last night, Sylvia did a three-hour stretch and two two-hour stretches of sleep.  Soooo much better than waking up every hour from 2am to 6am.  So much better.  That and I went to bed at 8:30 or 9 pm last night, so I woke this morning feeling like a much perkier person.
I’ve been trying to upload photos from Andrew’s birthday and the days preceding, but it’s been my record-slowest upload ever.  I picked out the pictures.  Got interrupted.  Set the pictures to upload.  Got interrupted twice.  Uploaded one set.  Interrupt.  Upload second set.  Interrupt.  Add captions to one… you got the story.  So this morning, I was able to finish adding captions, and I’m posting this while Sylvia is in her exersaucer watching Andrew who is making matches of his memory cards.
Some good pictures in these sets.  Enjoy!
Andrew’s birthday party
The days preceding Andrew’s birthday.

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Sylvia is rolling

portrait.JPGJune 24: Sylvia rolled a couple weeks ago, but it wasn’t until this past weekend that she really got the hang of it.  At one point on Andrew’s birthday, she rolled over about 10 times in a row.  She’s been sleeping in a “snuggle nest” infant bed that helps the great-big crib feel a little more cozy for a little tiny baby.  But last night, she was rolling around and got herself all cock-eyed.  So I took down the play-silk canopy I had hanging over the crib and took out the snuggle nest, and tonight she’s sleeping in the full crib just like a big (?) girl.
The little one has been rather unhappy the last couple days.  I think her teeths are bothering her.  She’s also been continuing to wake up every hour or two all night long.  It’s just not cool.  But she doesn’t believe me.  Or speak English.

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Our boy is three!

birthdaygang.JPGJune 24: We sent Granny Lu home today after a really nice visit here the last several days.  She and Grandad arrived on Thursday night, and we had a fun time together celebrating Andrew’s third birthday.  On his actual birthday on Sunday, we had a great time at Wingra Park with my family and Sarah and Wes and Bryan’s parents.  Andrew is officially three now!  Pictures are in the gallery.
A couple good recent comments by the young man:

Breakfast conversation with his dad:
Bryan: Andrew, please eat the crusts of your bread, not just the middle
Andrew: I don’t want to eat my crusts.
Bryan: Well, you know, you need to learn to eat your crusts because grown-ups eat their crusts.
Andrew: Am I a grown-up?
Bryan: No, not yet.
Andrew: Then I don’t need to eat my crusts yet.
*gotcha!*

On our way to a party, Andrew is in his carseat talking to himself:
“This party is going to be a yiddle bit fun. (pause) Not a LOT of fun.  A yiddle bit fun.”

Andrew’s word of the week is (unfortunately) “boring.”  He’s decided that many things are boring.  We’re part way through a book, and he wants to stop because it is boring.  We’re watching a DVD, and he informs us that it is boring.  Since when did he become so worldly?  Maybe since he’s three!

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Ooooo a new camera!

swing.JPGJune 21: I am the very lucky owner of a new camera.  A snazzy SLR with which I  can do all kinds of need photography actions.  I get a little tight in my throat just thinking about how cool it is:)  It’s a gift from Terry, and I’ve been voracioulsy reading all I can about photography and Photoshop.  My new way of keeping my brain engaged and expressing my creativity is going to be photography.  And while I tend to take a dozen or so pictures each day on my point-and-shoot camera, I think I’d like to learn how to take really nice portrait pictures of the kiddos in my life.
I don’t want to decrease the number of snap-shots that I’m taking, so I’ve decided to kind of segregate the pictures I take with the SLR onto a new Flickr site.  I plan to post my pictures that have some degree of artistic merit to the Flickr site, so feel free to check it out.

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Lots of fun + lack of sleep = fewer posts

fingerhold.JPGJune 21:  Since I started staying home, I’ve been posting pretty frequently, so I was kind of surprised to note that I hadn’t done a post in a full week.  Part of the issue is that Sylvia hasn’t been sleeping well.  She’s back to waking up every 1-2 hours at night and hasn’t been napping during the day.  Andrew hasn’t been napping at all either, and that has left me with little time or energy for logging on to the computer!
But despite our lack of sleep, we’re also having lots of fun.  Bryan’s parents came into town on Thursday, and we’re having a good time enjoying Andrew’s last days of being two.  Tomorrow he turns three!
Pictures that I uploaded earlier in the week are in the gallery.