Oreos

Remember the old 80's commercial with the father teaching his son how to split, lick, and dip Oreos in milk? Well the scene played out at our house in full a few weeks ago. Needless to say, Owen's first exposure to Oreos was a HUGE hit...

Stuck in my Head

I have a song stuck in my head and it is driving me crazy. The bigger problem is that the song is on constant repeat around our house, courtesy of a very obsessed 2 year old. Owen has learned the name song and we hear him singing to himself before he falls asleep, singing in the back seat of the car, singing to Josh when he wakes up from a nap, signing in my ear at 6:30 in the morning. His favorite name, of course, is Josh:
Josh Josh bo Bosh
Me mi mo Mosh
Josh-i-wa!

Over the weekend he was constantly singing through the names in our family and through every friend at school. Lily, Lucy, Jake, Ellie, Diego, Dani, Lily again, Layla, Maya, Lily again:
Lily, Lily bo Bily
Me mi mo Mily
Liiii-ly!

Tonight, the song reached new heights, progressing beyond names. Owen, do you want peas for dinner?
Peas, Peas bo Beas
Me mi mo Meas
Pee-ease!

Time for a bath.
Bath, bath, bo bath
Me mi mo math
Baaaa-ath!

Can I watch a show, show bo Bo...
This is the Newspaper, newspaper, bo bewspaper...
Is Josh eating squash, squash, bo buash...
Where's my doggie, doggie, bo boggie...

Is it driving you crazy yet? As Scott observed, it's amazing how fast something can go from cute to just plain obnoxious...
Obnoxious, obnoxious, bo boxious
Mi mi mo Moxious
Ob-noooo-xious!

They Say it's your (half) Birthday...

Oh my! If I thought we reached Josh's 5 month birthday quickly, but I was totally unprepared at how shocking it is to be looking at 6 months... half a year... with our baby boy. I have no idea where the last 6 months went. Actually, that's not true. I have a pretty clear picture of where the last six months went, and that picture is filled with diapers, nursing, a messy house, survival at work, freezer meals, and very little sleep.

But, the picture is also filled with wonderful smiles, giggles, wonder, supportive friends, growing family, and pure, pure joy that only the innocence of new life can bring.

Josh decided to mark his 6 month birthday with two accomplishments.

1. He is officially sitting. Yesterday, he was occasionally balancing, still leaning awkwardly on the boppy and tipping over every minute or two. Today, something just clicked and he sat, unsupported for 10-15 minutes at a time. Inside, outside in the sunny grass, at church this afternoon... sitting. Sweet!

yesterday:

today:

2. Josh finally consumed some solids! At dinner, Scott was able to sneak in multiple bites of pureed squash and everything went down the hatch. This is a big one, as we have been trying every 3 days for the last month, and Josh has shown ZERO interest in eating anything resembling food (sweaters, drawstrings, toys, and paper were a different story). I could tell he was getting hungrier and hungrier, and I was starting to worry. Not that a Tablespoon of squash makes a big difference, but it gets us on our way to bigger and better things. Hooray!

Other things about Josh at 6 months:
He is super ticklish under the armpits.

Owen and Josh's new favorite game is to get right in each other's face and laugh and laugh and laugh. Yesterday, I asked Owen if he wanted to go to the library - something he had been asking about for 2 days - he said, "No! I want stay home and laugh with Joshua!"

He is nursing all. the. time. during the day - this is driving me nuts. I wish he would sit and eat a full feeding, but instead, he eats just enough to take the hunger off and then we need to take a break and try again in 30-45 minutes to make sure his belly is full.

He is babbling and screeching an ear-splitting high pitched squeal.

Uncle Ryan will be pleased to know that Josh has a strong affinity for our Orca Whale bath toy and Auntie Sara continues to rock the gift giving as we don't seem to go anywhere without Sophie the Giraffe.

Josh's sleep "habits" continue to puzzle us. At night, I'm just feeding him twice, but he is regularly up 1-2 more times (though this is a VAST improvement over a month ago when we moved him out of our room). Last week, he took 2 1/2-3 hour afternoon naps for 4 days in a row. He then slept wonderfully at daycare last week (a first). And this weekend, we struggled to get more than a 45 minute afternoon nap. Needless to say, we are nowhere near being able to put the boys in the same room, so Josh's sleeper is still hanging out in the corner of our guest/storage room.

He "found" the animals this past week or so, and is loving to watch Hudson and pet the cats.

Current nicknames: Baby J and Josh-i-wa (currently the only way Owen will refer to him).

Grace

We are in survival mode around these parts this week. I got hammered by a nasty head cold. The kind that would normally be no more than a frustrating inconvenience, but when you're nursing a baby and getting up 2-4 times a night, the body is just no good at fighting off a little bug. The cold has hit Scott and Owen in milder form and Josh seems to be doing better than anyone - a benefit of breastfeeding. I'm just thankful we aren't down and out with the stomach flu (knocking on wood).

This is one of those times where being a working mom has its benefits. I was able to take the afternoon off on Wednesday and head home for some extra rest while the kids stayed at daycare. I really don't know how stay home moms manage when they come down with a bug.

The theme for today was supposed to be "survival." Nothing planned, no errands to run, just make sure we all get fed and rested. Movies on queue, and I was fully committed to taking a nap when the kids slept this afternoon. Imagine my dismay when Josh decided not to sleep well this morning, pushing his afternoon nap a full hour earlier than Owen's. I did my best to get Owen into bed as quickly as possible, but by the time he went down, Josh was starting to stir. I laid down thinking, "By the grace of God, I will get 15 minutes."

And, by the grace of God, I got a whole hour of sleep! And then, I got another hour of quietly puttering around the house waiting for Josh to wake up from his longest nap ever - 3 hours! And then, Josh and I lounged around while Owen finished hour three of HIS nap. (That NEVER happens - he must be sick.) The grace was pouring down around our house today... and I feel optimistic that I'll be able to go up skiing with my mommy posse tomorrow.

We'll see if that grace will hold through the night...

Homemade

Nobody would ever accuse me of being crafty. In fact, this blog is about as good as it gets. Yes, I own a sewing machine, but my skills are remedial at best. But last week, I got all excited to sew a little project for Calla's birthday gift.

Owen and I tackled the project during Josh's nap. Owen had helped Grandma sew some pillowcases the prior week, so he was quite the helper, telling me all about the parts of the machine ("this is a foot," "you need thread the needle").

In the end, the project turned out just the way I wanted - a super cute sash bag to hold... well, I can't post that here, as it would ruin the surprise, but the gift on the inside was also homemade, by Scott. Happy Second Birthday Calla!

Makeshift Easter

Without a "home" church right now, we really missed out on the Lenten lead up to Easter. There's a reason we have the season of Lent to help us focus and prepare for the most important holiday on the Christian calendar. As it is, Easter snuck up on us and we were unprepared to properly celebrate. On the plus side, we were also unprepared for the secular celebration - what's with the bunny anyway??

We did manage to talk with Owen about how Easter is a special day, and his favorite book for the last 6-8 months has been "The Beginner Bible," but these are certainly some hard concepts when you're two years old. But I like Owen's version of Easter. As he tells the story: "Jesus got owies from being on the big sign. Then, he went into the cave with the guards on the outside. The angel sits on the big rock and Jesus goes to visit his friends." Not such a bad start...

On the celebration side, we managed to die Easter eggs for the first time in our married life. (Man, do I hate the smell of hardboiled eggs!) Actually, Scott and Owen died the eggs while I was putting Josh to bed, but Owen saved 4 eggs for me.


The funniest part is that the died eggs are still sitting in our fridge wrapped in plastic. We never even hid them! The boys got new books after church for Easter gifts and Owen was thrilled to get to eat a few pieces of candy. My parents also took us out to an Easter dinner, so we got to celebrate a bit with family.

I think the best part about Easter was that we attended a church near our house that we've visited a handful of times in the last 6 months. As it turned out, about 12 other people from our old church were there as well. It was such an Easter gift to get to worship with our old church family! Who knows? Maybe we'll find ourselves regularly worshiping among friends again soon. We need it.

Starting Early

Owen loves helping with the laundry (sorting, diving in the piles, starting the machine, watching the spin cycle). Scott decided to get Josh started early, too...

Of course, this is quite similar to the way that Owen got involved with the chores back when he was also about 6 months old... here.

Boys in the Snow

I am feeling quite behind on posting these days. Scott and I have both been slammed with work and putting in a lot of hours after the kids go to bed, so getting back on the computer after spending all day on the screen is pretty unappealing. Thankfully, we both got through some significant deadlines today and are lazily lounging catching up on our shows.

So, playing a little catch-up, here are the pictures from Owen's second skiing adventure. Last month, Scott and Papa (my dad) took him up on a beautiful, sunny Saturday. This time, Scott rigged up our kids' rock climbing harness with great success.


I think Owen looks so much older in this picture - hauling his gear up to the mountain.With Papa. My dad was so excited to take Owen up on skis. In a few years, he'll be chasing Owen all over the mountain.

Owen LOVES riding the chair lift. And we love that Bachelor lets you ride the beginner chair free on Saturdays. No rope tow!!
How's this for a beautiful day to be skiing? Kind of a killer to be stuck on the bunny hill when you can see the crystal clear view up to the summit.

Every good ski day finishes with hot chocolate in he lodge.

Success! More of the same next year, please.

The Good in March

For some balance after that last post (and to help brighten my own mood), here are some other things that have been going RIGHT around the Maxwell House:

Aunt Kate came to visit.

My parents were in town for a long weekend and Scott and my Dad took Owen up skiing. I'll post those pictures separately.

Scott's mom was here for a whole week over Spring Break. In addition to taking care of the kids while I worked, she helped out in the evenings while Scott was slammed at work. We took the kids to free Ice Cream day at Ben & Jerry's, Scott and I got a date night (3rd one in March!), I got some one-on-one time with Owen, and Grandma helped Owen build a snowman during one of our freak morning snowstorms. Owen is also now convinced that "Grandpa is taking me to a baseball game," so Jeff and Ethel are on the hook because that kid doesn't forget.


I start a running program on Saturday - 9 weeks to get you ready for a 5K. Baby steps, baby!

Huskies won two games in the NCAA tourney. Owen watched some parts of the game with Nana and Papa, yelling, "Go Huskies! No Ducks!" Whenever one of the other games came on, Owen would say, "I don't like that basketball game." When I asked him why, he replied, "They're not wearing purple." and when the Huskies wore their black uniforms (why??), he kept saying, "Those aren't Huskies. Those are Beavers." Smart kid.

I finished up 3 weekends of XC ski class and loved it. Julie and I tried to ski to Swampy Lakes shelter on Sunday and found that the trail was much harder than anticipated.

We had a much needed dinner with two of our favorite couples that we used to see all the time a church. Between the three families, we now have 5 kids under age 3. It was actually incredibly encouraging to get together and discover that a community dinner is still feasible. Sure, it takes some planning (and a reschedule due to sick kids), but Owen and Joseph even entertained themselves in the backyard for a time and the adults had some semi-coherent conversations. We're hosting the next one in April.

Scott finally got back out on his bike and is looking forward to a long weekend in Moab at the end of April.

And Scott and Owen have been growing their hair out a bit...

While I have a Moment

I write witty blog posts, think of the quirky things my kids do that I want to record, imagine how the pictures will look on the screen. Trust me, it's all amazing... in my head... at 2:20 AM. The reality is that very little of what I imagine makes it to the screen. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

As it is, right now our living room is covered in building blocks, painters tape, and cars (another tape-city project), every cushion has been thrown on the floor (jumping practice while I made lunch), there are craft beads and hole punch stars exploding from the craft corner, lunch dishes are piling high, and I can see two massive baby spit up stains soaking into the floor (no idea when that happened). My patience is thin, my creativity is shot, and I desperately need a shower.

***Positive Note - the laundry is temporarily finished, folded, and put away!***

Most weeks, I spend a little time on Wednesday nights brainstorming activities to occupy Owen on Thursday and Friday while we're all home. This week, work has been crazy, so my evenings have been spent back on the computer instead of taking care of things around the house. And let's face it, my housekeeping skills are pretty dismal to begin with. My "activities" for Owen have consisted of trying to convince him that it's fun to help me vacuum, dust, and put away toys. We did manage to make some cookies this morning, but I can tell he's caught on that I'm distracted and having a hard time mustering the excitement to play Dora Candy Land.

***Positive Note - my in-laws gave me a housecleaning for my birthday!***

Oh yea, and we're tired - exhausted really. We've successfully moved Josh's co-sleeper into the guest room, but he continues to wake every 2 hours. At this point, he's old enough to sleep long stretches without eating, but Josh has developed a second (and related) terrible habit of just snacking at mealtime. Rather than nurse through a full feeding, he just snacks enough to knock the edge off and then I know he's going to be up in 1 1/2 to 2 hours hungry again. Urgh.

***Positive Note - the kids are both currently napping at the same time!***

The other real struggle is that Josh seems to be trying to carry his snacking habit over into the day times. At daycare, he's in this routine of eating tiny meals all day long and napping 45 minutes sections in between. Not good. At home, I work to help him get some consolidated sleep (this morning, he slept 2 1/2 hours with just a few visits to return the binky), and I try to space his feedings. I need to get them to do this at daycare - I think that will help him space feedings at night.

I had great hopes of doing some meaningful Easter activities with Owen this week, but here is Friday and we haven't even figured out where we're going to church on Sunday. (We are now officially a full year without a home church - how did that happen??)

***Positive Note: At least we dyed Easter Eggs!***

So there you have it. That's the Maxwell House status today. It ain't pretty, but it's the truth.