A week with fun memories

This was was a little different than normal for us, but definitely full of some fun memories.

First, our play group met at the zoo on Tuesday instead of at church; it was a relatively nice day and since we're not sure how many more of these we're going to get, we decided to take advantage of it. Kate was a pretty good sport about the whole deal, even when she got to eat in the primate house ... I wonder if the lemurs and chimpanzees have ever gotten to see a baby nurse before ... hmmm ... Anyway, Anna was such a trooper, opting to chase after Eli and Thomas (both 3 and very active) instead of riding or standing on the stroller. Boy, was she TIRED that afternoon and evening!

Then on Wednesday Matt surprised us by taking a day off of work to hang out with his girls. Anna and I still went to music class, but then we all played outside quite a bit in the afternoon. Anna ran around the yard while Matt used the leaf vacuum to collect some leaves for next year's garden. Again, Anna was wiped out by the end of the day.


Thursday I took the girls over to Milwaukee to spend the day with Gretchen and Josh. Josh and Anna are certainly in need of a bit more adult supervision/intervention than they needed previously, mostly because Josh likes to be a bit more physical than Anna would prefer. We heard a lot of "No, no, Josh, don't do that!" before Anna would start crying. Gretchen said that she's already working with Josh on the concept of "no means no" while I was trying to teach Anna to say "no", then walk away or say "let's do something else". Both kids were pretty receptive to the learning :)


Josh was pretty taken with Kate. He loved making her smile and laugh and, of course, she loved it, too. Anna didn't seem to mind too much that Josh was more interested in Kate than her at times ... hopefully Anna will always be so gracious about having a boy's attention diverted to her sister :)

This past week was also the first time Kate took a bath in the big bathtub with Anna. Both girls LOVED the experience, even with Anna's big splashes. I think Anna is going to love teaching Kate all kinds of bathtime games, and as you can see below, Kate idolizes her sister even now :)

Growing, growing, growing ...

I've decided that Anna must be going through some kind of growth spurt here recently. She's been sleeping in almost every morning for a week now, in addition to taking good naps, and has seemed to be extra hungry, too. She's also been a bit crabby in the mornings, even though she's been sleeping a lot. At first I thought it might be a cold, but there were absolutely no cold-like symptoms. I finally put things together when she pulled out a t-shirt and pants to wear today that she wore all summer; the pants were a full inch too short and the shirt was quite a bit snugger than just a month ago.



Kate is, of course, growing like a weed, too, but that's more typical for her. She's well into 6 month clothes and some of those are even getting a bit snug. It's hard for me to remember sometimes that she's only 5 months old! But she found her feet a few weeks back and that's fun for everyone!




Last week was a pretty low key kind of week, with just our normal stuff. I don't remember too many of the details, though, because Kate gave us a few rough nights. We have no idea why, but every few nights she wakes up at about 3 or 4 and just wants to be up to play for a bit. Oh, well. I'm sure it will all work out someday ... Matt and I joke that Anna's "witching hour" is around 7 p.m. when we're getting her ready for bed whereas it looks like Kate's "witching hour" is around 3 a.m. Hmmm.



We've still been trying to be outside as much as we can before things get too cold. We were blessed last week with a couple of sunny days in which to just goof off around the yard. Anna got a kick out of running laps around the front yard and giving neighbor John some really silly smiles each time she passed him.



One noteable event, at least for Anna, from last week was Bible Study on Thursday. She's certainly come a long way in terms of being comfortable in the nursery with whoever is scheduled for that day. Last year she'd cry almost every time anyone left the room; this year she just wants me to make sure she is set up first. Except for last week ..

It turns out that the yearly check for the church's fire alarms was scheduled for Thursday. I had no idea until they went off the first time. I went into the nursery to check on Anna since I know she's pretty sensitive to loud sounds and sure enough, she had her hands over her ears and was crying. I got her settled back in to read some books with "Grandma Carol", but when I took Kate in (she was getting louder than the discussion) about 15 minutes later, Anna was still sitting on Carol's lap with her ears covered.

So ... Anna spent the rest of the Bible Study on my lap with the rest of the ladies saying "I want to go home." Unfortunately, the alarm went off one more time before the guys finally left. This whole event was a major topic of conversation for Anna for the next few days ... we finally had Anna help us test the smoke detectors in our house on Saturday morning to try and help her get over the whole thing (thanks for the suggestion, Mom!). I'm sure we'll still talk about the fire alarms and how they "make our ears hurt" the next several times we go to church, but at least it's not as scary anymore.

We had a few extra minutes before we left for church on Sunday, so I was trying to get a picture of both girls together ... not very successfully. Kate was actually more cooperative than Anna about the whole thing :)

"Are you happy?"

We're talking a lot lately with Anna about feelings. She seems to be trying to figure out emotions beyond happy and sad, so we're checking out all kind of books from the library and I'm working with Matt on how we can model "I'm feeling ______", not necessarily the easiest thing to do :)

Anna has always been very sensitive to others' feelings and will often get upset herself if anyone around her, most notably me, is upset. She'll keep asking "Are you happy, Mommy?" until I say yes. If I respond with something other than yes ("I'm tired" or "I'm working on it" or simply "no"), then she'll sometimes bring me her blanket to try and get me to feel better. Of course now the "Are you happy?" question has turned into a bit of a game, too. Sometimes if she's asking just to be silly, I'll ask right back "Are YOU happy?" and we'll go back and forth until one of us get sick of the question :) As I write Anna is running laps upstairs and every time she passes Matt she's asking, or rather shouting, "Are you happy, Daddy?!?!"

Besides that, here are some photos of Kate and her buddy Noah. Kate spends some time on Wednesday mornings at Noah's house while Anna and I go to music class and Noah comes to our house on Friday afternoons so his mom can get some time "off".



This past Friday I put Kate in her doorway jumper and Noah in the exersaucer so they could see one another. Both kids couldn't take their eyes off each other! Kate was so funny because her body would start turning, but she'd keep her head pointed towards Noah until the last possible moment :) By the way, she loves her jumper, and Anna loves to run past Kate and yell something at her while she's running laps around the house.


On a different note, Matt and I are both a bit bummed these days that we can't really go outside to play after dinner anymore ... too dark and too cold. So we're working on adjusting to the fall/winter evening routines, which often include lots of books.

After having several days (weeks?) of cold and wet weather, we had a beautiful autumn day today. This morning we had friends (Eli and dad David) over to make applesauce, but as soon as they left and I got things somewhat cleaned up, I was outside with whoever was awake. The girls are on opposite napping schedules right now, so Kate and I hung out together outside while Anna was sleeping and then Anna and I spent all afternoon together while Kate was napping. So much fun!

Fall!

On the radio this morning the broadcasts mentioned that last year on this day the high was 83 degrees; today's high is 43. I think we went straight from summer to what feels like winter ... crazy weather! This past weekend I had to dig out all of our winter coats, hats, and gloves just so we could go to the pumpkin patch. It's a good thing that I picked up some winter boots for Anna a few weeks back!

Last week we had some random fun, along with some challenging days. First the fun!


Since last week was fire awareness week, our local fire department had an open house at the fire station. We thought it would be fun to go, but opted out of the pig roast part of the evening. Kate seemed to enjoy all of the action and Anna had a great time.



I think Anna's favorite parts were seeing Sparky (the fire safety dog character, in case you didn't know), watching the bigger kids get to spray a fire hose at cardboard fire cutouts, and getting to pull the cord that made the bell ring on the fire engine. Then the fire hat was a huge hit for a few days, too :)



Another fun part of last week was that Kate got her first experience with food other than milk. She got to taste some cereal in the middle of the week and did surprisingly well with it. She's sort of figured out that she should open her mouth for the spoon, but isn't very regular with that skill yet. And she's definitely still working on getting the food to the back of her mouth to swallow.


Kate also got to try sweet potatoes on Saturday, but I think we're going to hold off on those for a little bit, or at least not give her quite so much next time. Kate woke up at 4 a.m. on Sunday just to poop and get a fresh diaper; then she didn't want to go back to sleep. After we finally got up for the day, she pooped another three times by noon. Who knew sweet potatoes could do that?


One more fun part of the week was our trip to the pumpkin patch. It seemed a little silly to go somewhere to buy pumpkins when we have three beautiful ones from our own garden, but there's just something special about the wagon ride and a big pumpkin field. Anna told us she wanted a "yittle" pumpkin and she took FOREVER to pick hers out :)


And finally, some of the challenges. Wednesday was a rough day for Anna, probably because she had a cold coming on, but of course I didn't know that at the time. A few too many meltdowns for Mommy's idea of fun. As for Kate, I think we're finally coming to terms with the fact that this child is just going to be consistently inconsistent. One night she'll sleep through and the very next night she'll wake up several times. We're pretty sure that she'll go back to sleep on her own now, provided that she's not hungry and doesn't have a poopy diaper, but of course that will probably change, too. The only thing that seems to be predicable about Kate is that she smiles and laughts at almost anything. Silly kid!

South Dakota and Baby Ruth

Whew! We got back this morning from our trip out to South Dakota to visit Michal, Sam, the boys, and Baby Ruth. Almost a thousand miles in the van, two hotels, lots of rest areas, many renditions of "The Wheels on the Bus" and "If You're Happy and You Know It", but all worth it to see the Needhams and to be a part of Ruth's baptism.


Overall, the traveling went a lot better than we thought it might go. We borrowed a portable DVD player from a neighbor and that helped for Anna. Then Matt and I took turns sitting in the backseat to keep Kate company sometimes. The hotel experiences were interesting, especially since Anna still feels the need to talk to herself most nights before she goes to sleep. Coupling that with Kate getting up for good by 6 a.m. and no one got much sleep either night, but I'm sure we'll recover soon.

We had a great time seeing Michal, Sam, the boys and little Ruth. Jonah and Seth are growing up so fast and baby Ruth is such a sweetheart. Anna loved playing with all of the boys' toys and also enjoyed saying hi to baby Ruth.

Kate did surprisingly well for all of the craziness going on around her; she even joined in for some of the gun fights.

Unfortunately, however, Anna decided to show a bit of her spunky side during Ruth's baptism and also during the rest of the church service. She's normally so well behaved, especially during church, but things were just so far out of her normal routine that she kind of got that "evil" look in her eye on Sunday morning. The lack of sleep for her probably didn't help anything either :)

On a side note, Kate's sleep training was going pretty well last week, but we thought it would be better for everyone to replug her at the hotel. So tonight we start again ...

Krazy Kate

It feels like our life had been dominated lately by Kate and some of her "kraziness", specifically her sleeping habits. She'd been doing great at night and then things started to fall apart with her last cold. After a few nights of getting up once, she started getting up more and more, pretty much to just need the pacifier. I won't go into all of the details, but it culminated with a couple of nights where we had to get up with her many times requiring more and more work from us to get her to sleep again before we decided we needed to institute some "sleep training". We decided no more "replugging" in the middle of the night. Last night was rough, although not as bad as it could have been ... we'll see how tonight goes.

So Matt and I have been trying to survive on pretty big sleep deficits lately and have simply been working on maintaining the statis quo in our little family :)

But we have had some fun visits lately, too. My brother flew in from Colorado a few weekends back and stayed here, along with my parents. Anna was certainly in heaven being the absolute center of attention for the weekend. By the time everyone left, though, she was ready to have some alone time.

Last week Gretchen and Josh came over for a day. Both kids were excited to see each other and have changed so much since they last saw one another just a few months ago. There were a few more disagreements than before, mainly Anna saying "No, no, Josh, it's MY turn" or something along those lines. Gretchen and I had originally planned to make some applesauce that day, but the previous night was one of Kate's bad ones and so we cancelled those canning plans.


Anna actually took a nap while Josh was here, athough Josh didn't (understandably), but both kids were still exhausted by the end of the day. They goofed around on our guest bed for a bit and then wanted to just crash near one another :)



Despite Kate's goofy sleep stuff, she's such a fun baby. She's really gotten into giggling lately and literally can't keep her eyes off of Anna when Anna is around. Also, she can sit up! Not for very long and not with much stability, but still ... crazy strong kid.



Last news (can you tell that I'm a bit sleep deprived by the randomness of this entry?) ... Michal and Sam had their baby on Friday and Ruth Ella Needham will be baptized this coming weekend. Since we're sponsors for little Ruth, we're planning to head out to South Dakota for the weekend. Should be an adventure!

Our busy day

Today was our first day of music class this semester as well as Kate's 4 month check-up. First ... music class ... I can't say enough how much Anna loves this activity. It was incredible to see how much she'd changed and matured since we'd last gone in May. She was so comfortable and excited, even though there were different kids in the class and it was in a different building. She and her buddy, Henry, (who's from our church and was in class with her last spring) both were following most of Miss Debbie's directions and trying to imitate many of her actions, mostly with success. So much fun!

Kate, by the way, spent the morning with a neighbor who has a 6 month old son, Noah. Jen and I are going to trade off childcare this fall/winter so Anna and I can participate in Kindermusik together and so Jen can have a morning off to run errands and such. This way Kate gets to take a real nap in the morning when we're at class, she'll (hopefully) get used to having a regular "babysitter", AND she'll get to have a good buddy her age in the neighborhood.

After lunch and naps, we headed to the doctor's for flu shots for Anna and me and for Kate's check-up. I think this might have been our longest doctor's visit yet ... we got there before 3:30 and didn't leave until almost 5 ... yikes! Both girls did great, though. In fact, Anna didn't even cry for her flu shot; she was SO brave. Kate, on the other hand, screamed bloody murder for about 5 minutes after her shots. Poor kid. And we're going to have to go back in a few weeks for the other half of her shots. We opted to space out this round since Kate's getting over another minor cold.

Kate's stats are:
height: 25 inches (79%)
weight: 14 lb. 12 oz. (76%)
head: 42.5 cm (87%)

Overall she's doing well, even though this is her third cold in four months. I guess that's what happens when you're not the first-born and you have to be exposed to lots of big sister germs all the time. Oh, well. Only the first cold had any kind of fever; these other two were just runny noses and a little cough.

The other aspect that made our day busy was Kate's decision (albeit not conscious) to pee or poop while her diaper was being changed not once, not twice, but three separate times before 8:30 a.m.