Peas and Tax

Well, I've been wanting to post pics from Grandma's house and from Bee City, but I'm having trouble getting them from our photosite to here. I swear it's blogger's fault, but since no one else ever seems to have these issues, maybe it's really mine...

So I'm just going to do an all word one, though you can see the pics through our photos link on the right. Also, per request, there are a few of our new house before we moved in.

We've been working with Luke on saying "please" and "thanks," though with him it is more like "peas" (or "peeease!") and "tax." It is too cute.

He has also moved on to saying "Yeah" (or "Yah") for yes. Before, he had two words for yes: "Woo!"--an enthusiastic, happy yes.
"Otay"--for everything else.

So we'd have an exchange like this:
Luke (desperately): "Nana? nana? nana? nananananana???"
Me: "Do you want a banana?"
Luke: "Otay."

The funny thing was, he'd say "Otay" in a conciliatory way, like he was saying, "Okay, if you insist." It always made Greg and me laugh.

Our other favorite otay moment came after Greg read Luke a book called "Tom's New Haircut." Luke HATES haircuts, and so someone bought us a book about how haircuts are fun and all that. So afterwards, Greg says,
"So Luke, haircuts aren't that bad, are they?"
Luke: "Noooo"
Greg: "They don't hurt at all, do they?"
Luke: "Noooo"
Greg: "So next time you get a haircut, are you going to throw a fit?"
Luke: "Otay."

He lived up to his word, let me tell you.

We've also had fun playing games with Luke. His favorite is probably, "Dundo," where he says "dundo" and we repeat it. That doesn't sound much like a game, but it is. It even has rules, as determined by Luke:
1. Only Luke can start "Dundo." Any attempt on our part to say "dundo" and get HIM to repeat it will be met with stony stares.
2. Similarly, only Luke can end "dundo." I find this to be the heart of the game. No matter how many times he says dundo, be it 13 or 337, I WILL repeat it. I will never give in, never!:) Sigh. My competitive spirit has come out already with my son:). So far, I have yet to "lose" a game of dundo. Luke, of course, has yet to lose a game of dundo either, b/c it's impossible for him to lose. He is the lord of this game.
3. Extra points are given for enthusiasm, as well as silly voices and faces. They crack Luke up.

I think Luke likes "Dundo" so much b/c it's something he has control over, and there's so much (nap times, bath times, meal times, car trips) that he doesn't have control over. So if we're in the car, and Greg and I are chatting away in our own little world, all he has to do is start a game of "dundo," and bam! He has our attention. He has effectively joined in the conversation.

Another game that I find insanely fun is "Find the Letter." I don't know that there's much point in Luke learning his letters so soon; I think it is too early for him developmentally to understand what they represent or anything, but it's something he likes. He has those Leap Frog alphabet magnets, and he has a "LUKE" train that grandma painted for him, so he's learned a few. B/c of his train, he can identify all the letters in his name, as well as A, B, and C (though he often thinks G's are C's). He knows a few others as well, but his favorite letter by far, is P. His Leapfrog thing sings the alphabet song, and Luke will dance along with it and enthusiastically sing the letter "P!" (and ONLY the letter P) when it gets to that point in the song. So anyway, back to the game. The other night I was sitting in the living room floor with him, and I was wearing one of Greg's Murphy HS shirts. Luke looked up, ran over to my shirt, pointed, and shouted, "P!" So I congratulated him on identifying the P, and then asked if he could bring me a P from the fridge. He then runs, shouting the whole way, to the fridge, immediately grabs the two P's (they are in his Word Whammer, being his favorites and all), and comes running back as fast as he can. He is SOO proud. So we throw a mini-party when he gets back, and then I send him after the M. Same thing. We eventually spell out Murphy, and then I just send him after various letters to see what he knows. There were some misses, but just the pride and excitement he had while chasing down his letters was so funny. It was also great exercise for him, since he was essentially doing sprints across the house. We've done it several times since, and it is always fun.

Man, it is so fun having a toddler. I will really miss this time. The only thing I won't miss (well, one thing I won't miss) is the lack of sleep. Speaking of which, I'm going to take a nap while the kids are out....

Blogging Catch-up, Part 4: Luke's Words

Before I forget, I wanted to blog about Luke’s linguistic developments. He’s getting really good at putting two words together at a time. This list is mainly for our sake, to have a record, but here are some things he’s been saying. Some he’s been saying for awhile, and some he’s just recently picked up:

All gone.
All done.
I’m done.
New house.
Big house.
Big truck.
I love you (ah-uhv-oo)
There you go (ther-go)
Let’s see.
Then what.
Daddy go. (Unfortunately, this last one was said amidst many tears at 5:00 am when Luke woke up and refused to be comforted by anyone but mama. He’s going through a huge “mama” phase right now. Oh, and by unfortunately, I mean unfortunately for mama:)! I mean, I love that Luke and I are superclose, but at 5:00 am, I’d love it if Daddy could also have a share in the closeness!)

Blogging Catch-up, Part 3: The Accidental Parents

One bonus about having two children close together is that you don’t make the same mistakes with the second one that you did with the first one.

You make totally new ones.

For example, with Luke, we were very eager to get him on some kind of schedule, having heard that most babies thrive with order and routine and having heard that learning to go to sleep on one’s own was a crucial skill to develop. We tried not to be too strict, seeing as how Luke was just a baby, but I definitely made great efforts to learn his natural patterns—even keeping written records—and then incorporating them into an overall routine that worked for the whole family. In the process, we made a lot of mistakes that caused a lot of headache for all involved. I would wake him up at night, for example, to feed him during the first few months. I now realize that that was stupid. I would meticulously keep up with his naptimes, making sure he didn’t sleep too long during the day. That, actually, was probably a little over the top as well. In some ways, I think we disrupted his natural patterns more than we helped the situation.

Well. With Anna, we’ve gone in a totally different direction. We haven’t really meant to. That’s why I call us the accidental parents. That’s a term I read in that Secrets of the Baby Whisperer book while skimming through it in Target. Basically, it means that you’re more reactive than proactive in your baby’s development, and that you have no real plan. It’s obviously something to be avoided. And it’s where we currently find ourselves.

With Anna, we have apparently taken up attachment parenting. I carry her all the time (though I don’t “wear” her, except in my Baby Bjorn carrier), I feed her basically when she decides she’s hungry, and I sleep with her at night. We’ve gone this route not as a result of thorough study or b/c we believe it’s the most effective, but basically b/c the craziness of our lives recently has dictated it. Between moving, unpacking, dealing with a toddler, and various illnesses and out of town trips (mine and Greg’s), an infant schedule has basically gone out the window. However, Anna seems no worse for the wear. On the contrary, she actually seems a lot happier than Luke did...well, unless you ever try to set her down or insinuate she might need to take a nap on her own! I have a theory that this is why second children tend to be more laid back than their older siblings. By the time the second one comes around, the whole household is more “go with the flow”!

Blogging Catch-up, Part 2: Easter Pics

Like I said in the previous post, Easter was pretty crazy for us this year, since we had just moved in to our new house the day before. But we were still able to celebrate! I learned that my Easter bunny skills need work when I tiptoed into Luke's room to deliver the Easter basket to his crib in the morning and WOKE HIM UP. Man, that cellophane is loud! Oh well, hopefully I'll improve with practice!





















Luke's Easter basket was basically filled with Thomas stuff, as that is his current passion.



















































Our church had an Easter egg hunt at a local park after Sunday services. Unfortunately, this park is nestled in between 4 huge churches, all of whom were either still in service or just getting out. So parking was a beast. As we hiked to the park from our eventual parking space, we wandered if this little outing was even worth it, with Luke being so young (and so tired). I'm glad we stuck it out, however, because Luke LOVED finding eggs. He liked that things were inside them, though he didn't put together that these things were candy--thank goodness! We've since had several Easter egg hunts at home with empty eggs, and he loves it.
After church, Anna relaxed in her new day dress, a gift from the Easter bunny!

Blogging Catch-up, Part 1: Greetings

Wow. So I was right that I would have no time to blog for awhile. I think it’s funny that you have the most time to blog when things are mundane, so you tend to end up with long blogs about small occurrences. But then when something major happens, you barely have time to even note it, much less really blog about it. Which leads to blogs like, “We had a baby. Details to follow.”

So that’s why there has been no blog in what have probably been the most eventful, busy months of our lives. And of course, I don’t have time now to do them sufficient justice, so I’ll instead discuss them briefly in list form. And I’ll title that list

“Things I wouldn’t recommend doing with 2 children under age 2”

1. House shopping—Not a good idea. Though Luke did help us pick out our house by announcing “home” EVERY time we pulled into the driveway to look at it.

2. Making an offer and closing on a house—Luke actually “signed” the contract as well when he grabbed the pen and went to work on it while we weren’t looking. And Anna screamed throughout closing—thankfully, we left Luke with a sitter. It also didn’t help that I’m a big worrier. I basically worried my brains out through this entire process. It was a stressful few weeks!

3. Painting the interior of a house.—Thankfully, “Gaga” and “Ganddad” came in town and ended up doing about 96% of the painting. We tried working with the kids in the house. One day, Greg, me, and my mom were there from 9 am to 5 pm, and—I kid you not—we got one safety gate partially installed and less than one coat of paint on one room. How is it possible for three adults to be that unproductive and yet still feel like they worked all day? Simple. Throw in a toddler and an infant!

4. Move out of/into a house—Again, really stressful. How in the heck did we get so much junk? I swear we had about a third of this stuff when we moved into the parsonage five years ago! Thankfully, our church has a moving ministry, so about ten guys spent their Saturday moving all the furniture. One of our members even has a moving van, and it took two full loads—even though we had already moved the guest bedroom, Luke’s crib, the china hutch, and all the kitchen stuff a day or two before!

5. Try to celebrate any holiday the day after moving—I thought I was prepared for Easter. I had the kids Easter baskets all made up and their outfits picked out. But then on the Saturday night that we moved—the night before Easter—my mom reminded me that I didn’t have any white shoes for Luke. So I went off to pick some up. Well. ELEVEN stores and 2 1/2 hours later, I finally found some Keds that were dressy enough. Apparently, boys don’t need white shoes. And if they do, they certainly don’t need white dress shoes. And if they need white dress shoes, they definitely don’t need them in an 8W. Good grief!

6. Have your husband go out of town for a week and leave you alone with the kids in a partially moved in house.—Seriously. I thought I was going to lose my mind.

7. Start any kind of job—This wasn’t planned, and it wasn’t even related to the move, but I am now cleaning the church building part time to get some extra money for the fam. I’m very thankful for the opportunity, but again, juggling 2 kids under two, one of whom who’s three months old and exclusively breastfed, makes this fairly difficult, especially considering we now live 15 minutes from the church building and not across the parking lot.

Whew! That’s A LOT. And though it has been crazy, it has also been really exciting. We LOVE our kids (obviously), we LOVE our new house and the great neighborhood, and we LOVE our wonderful church family. It’s just been a perfect storm of changes that are going to take a little while to adjust to. Maybe if they were stretched over a few years and not a few months…