Frank the Tank and Other Updates

Holy cow...we have been BUSY with a capital B.  I'm not quite sure doing what, but we've had something going on every day it seems like.  This cold weather is giving us a little bit of cabin fever, I think.  Natalie has way too much energy to be cooped up all the time and it's been too cold for Ben to be out, really.  For that reason, I am looking forward to a little more spring-like temperatures (though I'd really like to wish for another foot of snow).

So, Ben...he's huge.  Not a joke, the kid is grown out of several pairs of his size 6-month jammies.  Since he's not due back to the doctor for another month, I did a little weighing and measuring of my own.  According to my calculations, Ben is somewhere in the neighborhood of 27 in and 18.5 pounds, which is the 95th percentile for both height and weight.  Wowza!

Ben got this fancy stuffed Mickey for Valentine's Day:

who blew up my baby?

but still he is so generous with his smiles

We continue to have Jack over on Mondays and Tuesdays for play time.  This week we had a special field trip to attend, which required me to take all three babies out at once!  This is the kids and all of their "equipment" as I moved it in steps towards the car.  Our special field trip?  To pick Mimi up from the airport!  She came in to visit the kids for a couple of days.

And even though getting everyone out the door on time was a little trying, I was thankful for the excuse to do something out of the house (see above re: cabin fever).  And, because in .2 seconds this is what our playroom looks like:

I tried to upload a couple of videos of Natalie doing the balance beam at gymnastics, but for whatever reason, I'm having a little trouble.  Anyhow, we continue to go to the class on Wednesdays.  Nat really, really loves it.  She gets a little carried away sometimes, which is understandable (she is two after all), but a few weeks back she was just being terrible.  By terrible I mean that she was running all over, not paying attention or participating, sitting on top of other kids, and even pushed one girl off the mat.  I intervened, gave her the chance to collect herself.  Then had to intervene again and threatened to leave early if she couldn't keep it together.  She promised better behavior but immediately upon return to the room, she took off running across the gym.  I snatched her up and carried her, screaming, out of the class and to the car.  Man, being a mom is hard.  But I'll tell you what.  That lesson stuck because since then she has truly been on her very best behavior in class.  

Here she is listening to Miss Sarah:

We all packed up for the fish fry at Uncle Ronnie's fire house.  Here's uncle RJ with Jack and Nat:

We have been working hard at potty training.  Some days are better than others.  And I really need a Ben sitter for a solid couple of days to focus ONLY on getting Natalie consistently to the potty.  One day she was dry for almost 8 hours and made two pees in a row on the potty.  Since then we have had only spotty success, but loads of tears and unhappiness if she doesn't make it.  So, I guess that's progress.  She was so proud of herself for making it to the bathroom, and here she is showing off the stickers on her chart:

So, lots going on, but then not really...where do the days go?

We have made a very small amount of progress on the sleeping situation.  Hallelujah!  Nat has slept through the night for the past week, except for last night, but I think she had a bit of a tummy ache, so I'll not count that.  And Ben has slept through 2 of 3 (but the one he didn't was really bad)!  Woohoo!!  I'll take it!

(And, serious apologies for the quality of the pictures...I haven't even gotten my camera out for, two weeks, so these are all from my phone.  Who has time to take pictures?!)

Ben: 4 Months

Time is flying by, and our Ben is four months old today.  He is HUGE.  Or at least huge compared to how big I can remember Natalie being at the same age.  He is fully in (and in some cases already grown out of) size 6 months clothes.  And, if you have been reading our day of a thousand blog posts, you'll know that he started rolling over two days ago.

On the occasion of his four month birthday, Ben got to sample rice cereal--actually, he got his first taste last night.  He doesn't hate it, but ahh the days of lots going in and lots being pushed right back out.  And the hands.  Always with the hands in the mouth.  I'm certain that he will be an eating machine once he gets the hang of it.  We also moved the high chair back upstairs this morning since Ben will be getting solids and he can now really join us at the table!  Of course, Natalie needed to be the first one to sit in the high chair once it mades its grand return to the kitchen....

Anyway, here's Ben:

one week

one month

two months

three months

four months

mmm...rice cereal

food in, hands in

cozying up to big sis

Ben is so quick to smile, truly such a sweet boy

that's the face of the devil, ladies and gents

I just love baby feet

Ben had another first tonight...his first fish fry at Uncle Ronnie's firehouse!  This year he just had to watch, but he was still good company.

Ben's four month doctor's appointment isn't happening for another month.  Because I scheduled him and Nat together for their last well-check, Ben's vaccination scheduled got pushed back a bit from his actual birthday.  So that will take place in March.  Also in March, we are planning Ben's baptism.

The Natalie Show

Natalie is a big time ham that loves to cheese it up for the camera.  And she's two and gets a tad bit jealous of any time Ben gets to himself.  And finally, she is really into dressing (and undressing) herself lately.  These things all combined this afternoon, and I was able to capture this gem of a series of pictures...

I took my pants off.  And I got Ben's sign.

And now I'm totally jumping on the chair and screaming like a mad woman.

And while I'm jumping I'm also twisting so when I inevitably fall I really do some damage.

Ha ha ha!  Nothing you can do to stop me because you're still holding Ben!

I'm so glad I have a ridiculous amount of two year old energy.

(check out the tongue action)

That was so much fun.

Mama, my legs are cold.  

If I didn't laugh at it, I would probably have already lost my mind...

Way to Roll

Two days shy of his four month birthday, Ben rolled over!  I was on standby with my trusty cell phone camera...I didn't want to run for my good camera in case I missed it, and then I thought..."what are stills really going to show anyway?"  So, forgive the dark quality...our living room has terrible light in the evening.

He was so proud of himself.  And Natalie was proud too, as you can see.  I need an assistant to help me defend Ben from Natalie while I try to capture his milestones on film...any takers?

Being the camera hog that she is, Nat wanted to make her own video.  PLEASE ignore my obnoxious singing...

50 Degrees in February

After two sleepless nights in a row, and a 50-degree day today.  I decided that we all needed to get out of the house and employed the fresh air tactic to try to wear out our babies.  (Ok, any thoughts on why our kids refuse to sleep all night are more than welcome here.)

We were gifted a zoo pass again for Christmas, and took advantage of it today.  What a glorious day to be at the zoo!  It was practically empty except for employees.  Not a joke, not even two rows of parking spaces were filled.  And it was cool enough that the animals were really active.  I am always interested to see what Natalie wants to see when we go.  Usually she wants to head straight for the elephants or the giraffes.  The manatees are another favorite, but she never comes up with them on her own.  Today she wanted to see the lions first.  But the winner of the day....the aardvark.  We spent quite a lot of time at her enclosure, learning all about aardvarks, and how silly it is that such a big animal eats only ants.  Natalie thought it was hilarious that the aardvark's name was Padmae, which she kept saying all afternoon: "Padmae the aardvark.  Padmae the aardvark."

Ben is so excited for his day at the zoo (his second trip!)

Unfortunately, from his vantage point in the stroller, Ben missed out on most of the animals...

but he did take advantage of the opportunity to take a two hour nap.

We always make a stop at the playground in the Children's Zoo.  

Today it was empty!

Can you see how close that little penguin was to the fence?

Nat loves the manatees...Betsy is the bigger one.  Woodstock is the smaller one.  He was swimming all over the place--he's new to the zoo since we were there last.  He came after another manatee was released back into the wild.  Good luck, Wooten!

the lions

having a snack and scoping out the lions

Natalie is really into dressing herself lately, and generally gets some input into her outfit.  Here is what she selected to wear to the grocery store last week:

She was so proud of herself...and she was a big hit with all the old ladies at the store

Minnie Mouse and Kitty

You know what happens when you ask a two year old to name an animal?  You wind up with names like Minnie Mouse and Kitty.  That's right...Natalie named the barn cats at Mimi and Pa's house.

Three days ago, I was asked to please feed the cats on Friday.  I remembered for a day and a half.  Then, this morning came and I was so busy preparing for dinner guests, that I completely forgot.  At 11:00am, Nat and I drove the car out to the mailbox (don't judge--it was cold, wet, and windy and taking the car is way easier than bundling the kids).  As I was pulling back into the driveway, Girl Genius spouted off with, "No, Mama.  Go to the barn and feed the kittens on Friday."

Um...what?!

I can clearly recall way back when I was little and we got a puppy.  Mom and dad asked us kids for name suggestions.  We came up with some real winners: Snowball, Harry (or maybe Harold?).  And you know what?  Those names stunk...much like Minnie Mouse and Kitty.  Back then Mom and Dad could say no....is Snowball really that much worse than Kitty?  

Nat & Ben

How lucky am I?

One day Natalie asked me to sing "The Cups."  I have no idea what that song is or where she thought she had heard it, so I made up a song that sounds pretty similar to the one she sings here. 

(Hopefully you can hear on this second video...she was being so cute that I tried to stay back a little so I didn't disrupt her.  Also, she dragged that chair and her toys over to be by Ben while I was vacuuming---and yes, I did vacuum in the dark as she says at the end)

Snow Baby

This afternoon I got a burst of energy, and took advantage of having Eric home to watch Ben.  Nat and I bundled up and headed outside to play in the falling snow...

It was so cold!  But since it's not often we get much snow around here, it was worth the frosty temps.

We tried to do some sledding, but the snow is so dry (and also barely covering the grass), that the sled wouldn't really go and Nat kept going off the front of it.  So, we resorted to me pulling her up and down the couple of hills in the yard.

Hi Brudda Brudda Ben

I wish you could hear Natalie talk to Ben.  She uses the funniest little voice, and the funniest baby talk. The part that strikes me about it is that I tried hard to never use baby talk with her, which I think is really evident now that she's really talking.  She doesn't have weird names for anything and can say any word you ask her to repeat.  Anyway, when she talks to Ben though...oh boy.

It goes something like this: "Hi there Brudda (brother) Ben.  Hey Brudda Brudda.  Aren't you a cutie boy.  Aww...such a muscle man."  I could listen to it all day, and it cracks me up every time.  It also, apparently, cracks Ben up, because he wears a giant smile and gives a good belly laugh whenever she spies his big sis.

Ben is quite the tummy time champ.  He is so, so close to rolling over...from back to tummy.  He didn't get the memo that it's much easier the other way, but whatever.  For what it's worth, Nat went from back to tummy first, too.  When he does tummy time now, he is raising his hips up off the ground and balancing on his toes.  I wonder if he'll be an early crawler?

And then there's Nat, who is just as sweet (and also devilish) as she can be.  I've been a little under the weather for nearly a week now, and was diagnosed this week with mastitis.  After 48 hours on antibiotics (with 12 days to go), sleeping in until 10:00 this morning, and an afternoon nap, I am FINALLY starting to feel a little on the mend.  Anyway, at 10:00 this morning, I felt a little face in mine, then a body over mine and into bed next to me.  She weaseled her way under the covers, put her hands on my face and said, "I just love you so much, mama."  Talk about a way to wake up.  She continued to rub my arm and face and say things like, "mama not feel good.  mama sick.  I love you, mama."  

It's so easy to focus on the rotten things that she does, but today was such a good reminder that despite all her trying behavior, she really is such a sweet and caring kid.  This evening, I scooped her up and we continued to talk about mama being sick.  I can't really blame her, first Turner was sick, then Cici and then suddenly they both weren't around anymore.  So, I told her I'd always be here for her and that mama isn't going anywhere.  Promises I hope beyond hope that I can deliver on.

Because it is Saturday, I felt like poo, and it was snowing, we all stayed in jammies until almost dinner. It was wonderful!

Nat and Ben practice tummy time together....