Dendi's New "Part" (Park)

The last few afternoons have warmed up beautifully -- perfect for the park. A few days ago, we headed over to Dendi's New Park. That's Eli's name for the park in downtown Senoia. Since we were so close to Dendi's house, we invited her to meet us there. Here are some pictures that Dendi got with her camera.

Dendi was especially impressed by Eli's climbing ability on the giant dinosaur.



Eli wanted to swing with Dendi, on Dendi's lap. Dendi tried to explain that she wasn't born with much of a lap -- she has short legs, but he wanted to try anyway. It was good for a few swings back and forth and lots of giggles.



The train tracks run right next to the park. No park visit is complete without a train passing by. Eli always stops playing to watch. And, of course I can never turn down an opportunity for a family picture.


Keira is enthralled with big kids. She watches their every move as they run, jump, slide and play. She wiggles and giggles in my arms as she watches Eli run around. I think she would love nothing better than to get down and run off with him. She got her first taste of playing at the park -- she rode on the bouncy frog.

Jump!

Finally, the most active and fun indoor activity this Christmas break has been jumping. I think I mentioned earlier, that we set up Eli's big letters and numbers into a play mat. It has multiple functions, including being a soft place for Keira to play on the floor. Eli and I also invented little jumping games on it like jumping through the whole alphabet. That game got a makeover and turned into hours of fun and a good workout.

Eli has a new fascination with jumping. He wants to run and jump everywhere. One morning, he was trying to jump off his big stool. He was in a dangerous place -- next to corners of furniture, doorways and over the hard wood floor. Not a good idea. Instead, Scott put the big stool over the letters and suggested that Eli try to jump to certain letters. He loved it. Each time, he'd climb on the stool, pick a letter and JUMP! Scottie snapped some great action shots.

More Indoor Fun

We are now enjoying Scott's Christmas break. We've done our share of Christmas shopping and a few jaunts to the park. But, since the weather is still cold and Eli and Keira are still coughing, we've continued spending a lot of time playing inside.

On one of Scott's last days of school I discovered a game that Eli and Keira could play together, sort of. I called it Family Duplo Time. Keira likes any container with loud hard plastic pieces. I think Eli's tub of playdough toys is still her favorite. Often, while Eli and I are playing in his room, I'll set Keira up on his bed with toys and pillows all around her. This time I gave her his basket of Duplos as I had before. Eli decided to join in on the fun. I've told him that he can play with the things she's playing with as long as he doesn't take things out of her hands. He decided he would wait for her to drop Duplos, then he would pick them up and build towers with them. In the first picture, when I asked Eli to look at the camera, he started dancing.




Eli has rediscovered his quike. It's a four wheeled bike that he has had since he was about 18 months. It's always been a favorite, but it had been collecting dust recently. A few weeks ago, while rearranging, Scott moved some toys including the quike into Keira's room. Eli has ridden it every day since. He rides it as an activity, he sits on it while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (his new favorite) and he rides it from one activity to the next. He's big for it, but he can maneuver so smoothly now, that in some ways it's perfect for him now. He also loves to ride it while listening to his new favorite music -- They Might Be Giants.

The fact that he loves They Might Be Giants now cracks up me and Scott. We both listened to them back in the 90's, and it's funny now to be listening to them with our three year old. Eli's introduction to them is a little convoluted. As I said, Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse is his new favorite show. He loves it and thankfully, it's not scary. Scott was impressed by the songs at the beginning and the end of the show. He looked them up online and it turns out that they are done by They Might Be Giants. Since Eli loves those two songs, Scott introduced him to other They Might Be Giants' songs that we already owned. They were a hit. Now, when the music is on Eli either dances frenetically through the house or zooms around on his quike. One day, while he was riding around the house, I plunked a Santa hat on him, making for a fun, festive photo op. I always love to get Santa hat pictures this time of year.



Last month, I blogged about Scott bringing rockets home from school and Eli's insuing fascination. Now, Scott is working on electricity with his fifth graders. So, he brought a motor, a fan and lightbulbs home to show Eli. Sure enough, Eli was enthralled. Daddy and Eli made a few different circuits, and Eli likes to turn the switches on and off. One night, he had an intricate game where he would ride his bike to come get one of us. We would follow him in his room, he would switch on the circuit, switch it off again and ride around once more. I think he played with it for hours.





If you look closely in the last electricity pictures, Eli has the remnants of face paint all over his face. One morning, he sat and methodically drew all over his chin with each color.

Message From Santa for Eli

Santa's Message for Eli

Indoor Fun for Sickies

We successfully weathered Keira's fourth tooth, now we're all sick. Bummer. We had been doing so well on the wellness front until this week. Last week, Keira, Eli and I took Keira's stocking in to be embroidered. The embroidery shop is walking distance and on the way to Jump 2 It. I decided to risk it, and take Eli for a little afternoon fun on a freezing cold day to jump to his heart's content. Although he had an absolute ball, I guess it was a bad choice.

Since Keira's hospitalization we've stayed away from large groups of kids. We haven't gone to any MOMS Club activities, story time or indoor jumping places. It was probably no coincidence that we all stayed healthy for almost two months. I guess I was feeling lucky. Even though Eli had a ball and I practically had to drag him out of Jump 2 It, I guess it ultimately was a bad decision. Sunday night, Eli's nose was running like a faucet. He was feeling so crummy that he asked for Benadryl even though he hates the taste. You know he's feeling bad when he asks for Benadryl! He's been sick all week, and he sounds worse now, but I think he's feeling better. A few days ago, Keira and I started getting sick. It would be no big deal for me, just a little cold. But, of course, when Keira doesn't sleep, neither do I. Once she's asleep she eventually can't breathe through her nose. She wakes up gasping. She can breathe through her mouth fine, but transitioning from her nose to mouth scares her and wakes her up. Then, she wants to nurse to fall back to sleep but her stuffy nose makes that difficult or impossible. Last night, she even threw up in the middle of the night -- I think it was all the snot. Poor girly. We tried suctioning her nose out, which is horrible, and unfortunately doesn't seem to last very long. Today her naps have been going pretty well, so that's a bonus.

Fortunately, Keira's mood has actually improved as she transitioned from teething to being sick. She's not sleeping well at night, but when she's up she's in a much better mood. She has gotten back in her old routine of playing independently for long periods of time. It's been so nice for all of us. She likes her playplace and her jumperoo, but she's happiest on the floor playing with toys. We've set up the large letters into a play mat which is a great surface to sit her on. I also put the Boppy behind her for when she falls backward. But, she's starting to get so mobile that she's often scooted away from the Boppy before she falls over, which is why I'm happy we've set up the play mat. She's mobile, but I think it's almost accidental. She sort of leans to one side while playing and then slowly scoots forward or sideways to reach her toys. Eli never crawled (at least not until after he walked.) So, it will be interesting to see if she does. Her behavior definitely lends to the possibility more than his ever did. He played on the floor, too, but not for nearly as long as she does. He liked playing in his playplace the best.



Another thing that increases her chances of crawling is that she does quite a bit of tummy time. We tried to do tummy time with Eli every day, but he screamed the second that you put him face down. Keira, on the other hand, does well for ten to fifteen minutes at a time, as long as I read to her. Her favorite books are Karen Katz flap books, especially "Where is Baby's Belly Button?"


Since Keira has been taking good naps and playing for long periods of time independently, it has given Eli and I much more time together. His favorite thing to do right now is crafts. I think we've done about six crafts in the last couple of days.

My Babies

I never can resist taking pictures of my two together. Eli likes to cuddle and love Keira a few times a day, and when they are together he asks if I'm going to get the camera. Ironically, once I have the camera he has no interest in smiling or even looking at the camera. Oh well. Here are the best of my recent attempts.

Teething Troubles

Keira is TEETHING! If you look closely in this first picture, you can see her two bottom teeth. She is now getting her fourth tooth -- her left front tooth, and it's a doozy. I think this tooth has been the single, worst one yet. I'm usually so lucky, in that, Keira is a wonderfully, easy baby. She still wants to take four naps each day, and when she's awake she's happy. I move her from her playplace, to the floor, to her jumperoo, or her high chair and as long as she's got something to play with or look at she's happy. Before this tooth started coming in, her latest favorite toys were a tupperware full of Eli's playdough tools. Who knew?




Unfortunately, my low maintenance baby is nowhere to be found. When she's awake now, Keira wants to be held almost all the time. Here is a picture that Eli took of me talking on the phone and holding Keira in the Baby Bjorn -- where she's spent a lot of time lately. Notice how she's chewing on the Baby Bjorn.


She also seems to want to nurse constantly, although her finger in her mouth can serve as a temporary substitute.


Scott is really good at entertaining her in one of her perches to try to extend her brief happy time. One night, he played Keira the guitar while she was in her jumperoo. She is fascinated by the guitar.



The biggest, most unfortunate casualty of her teething troubles has been our sleep. Last Thursday night, I didn't remember sleeping at all. Everytime she'd almost nod off, she would wake up screaming, whimpering or crying. It was awful. I think our sleep has slowly improved the last two nights, but I'm still walking around with that exhausted, raw feeling that you usually only get with a newborn in the house.

Santa Hat

As we've unpacked our Christmas things, our Santa hats are now within reach. The other day, while Eli was napping, I snapped a few pictures of Keira in a Santa hat. She's easy to photograph since she is constantly smiling.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

After baking the Christmas cookies, Scottie unpacked the Christmas tree so we could decorate it. Eli had already helped Grammie and Babo decorate their tree, so he was a pro. He even put the hooks on the ornaments by himself. He was very careful, as he broke one of the glass ornaments at Grammie's house -- it made an impression.



When he had filled all of the lower branches with ornaments, he wanted to bring out the stool to stock the top branches. Instead, Scottie suggested picking him up so he could hang the other ornaments. To compensate for the fact that Eli couldn't use one of his favorite things, his stool, Scott turned into Robot Daddy, complete with the necessary sound effects. Eli LOVED it! In fact, it was such a hit, that later on, when we found some more ornaments to hang, I was not an acceptable substitute. I'm horrible at making sound effects. :) Robot Daddy had to make another appearance.



So far, this Christmas season has been the most exciting for Eli yet. He keeps asking when Christmas will be here. We've wrapped a few presents and put them under the tree. Eli is having fun speculating about what he thinks are wrapped inside. We are using the Advent calendar that was such a hit last year, and counting the days until Christmas. It's fun to see all the anticipation and excitement written all over his face.

Christmas Cookies

This week has been a little tricky as far as Eli's behavior is concerned. He has a very short fuse. If he doesn't get his way, he storms into his room screaming and crying. Thursday was especially difficult. Fortunately, I kept my cool and I don't think I contributed to the problem, but I was happy when Scott got home to relieve me. The good thing is that he goes in his room on his own accord, so that I canI close the door behind him if he's being too loud. I tell him that when he's ready to be calm I'll be happy to talk to him. It's usually short-lived, but frustrating nonetheless. Scott and I are trying to convey to him that he can solve problems in much more fruitful ways, but I guess it's just one of the things that comes with the age. By comparison, two was such a breeze...

As I said, the temper tantrums are short lived, and besides Thursday, they don't seem to dominate the day. We managed to have a good week despite the behavior snafus, and even managed to squeeze in a little holiday fun. Last Sunday, on Scott's last day of his vacation, Eli and I baked Christmas cookies. He was mostly interested in sampling as he went and making as much mess with the flour as possible.




But, he still managed to enjoy the rest of the process including: mixing, rolling out the dough and using the cookie cutters.