Milestone Minutiae

Growth spurt

2009-06-29T18:22:00.000-07:00

For the past few days, Emmett has been eating as much as David.

Two month checkup

2009-06-29T18:13:00.000-07:00

Here are the stats from the two month visit:

14 pounds, 2 ounces
24 inches long
41.25 cm head circumference

He's basically on the same growth curve that Emmett was, with about a half-pound head start. Each of those numbers is in the 80-90th percentile range. Otherwise, he was pronounced perfect in every way (but I knew that already).

Cupcake! Broccoli!

2009-06-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

Often when asking for something, the boys (Emmett is the worst offender) will just point and shout, "Juice!" or, "Cupcake!" or, "Banana!" After a million reminders of hoe to ask nicely, David and I started to shout back. Sometimes foods, sometimes just nouns. So now it sounds like this:

"Cookie!"
"Window!"
"Cookie!"
"Banana!"

...followed by some confusion and David or me saying, "I thought we were just shouting out things." They usually do make an actual request at that point, sometimes even using the word "please!" I know this parenting thing is a marathon not a sprint, but that doesn't make the repetitive reminders any less tedious - it's nice when we can make it a little fun!

Luke prefers blue

2009-06-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

Luke has started asking for blue cups whenever getting a drink. Sometimes nicely, sometimes not so nicely. Fortunately Emmett is sane, so the requests are easily accommodated.

Another weird thing - Luke always wants the same flavor Dum Dum that Emmett gets. I guess that's not so strange, but it goes so far that when Luke is getting a sucker and Emmett is having something else, he'll still ask what Emmett would have.

Henry

2009-06-18T21:50:00.000-07:00

Henry's smiling much more these days, flirting with me, David, and his brothers.

It's getting easier to do things in the house, too. He's happy to lie under his play-gym and look at the toys for a while, especially while I'm in the same room cleaning.

Another time I had him on the bed while I was folding laundry. He was getting squirmy so I started singing. He quieted right down and then got happy, making cooing noises to sing along with me.

One more thing - for some reason (it could be the sun), Henry wakes up at 6am and then spends the time from 6-7 wiggling, kicking me, and cooing. It makes it very hard to sleep in. At least he's not fussing!

Poor dad or poor mom?

2009-06-18T21:43:00.000-07:00

After dinner I was nursing Henry and Luke wanted a drink. David heard the request and asked, "Can I get you something to drink?"

Luke replied, "I want mom to get it."

In the end, David got the drink, and Luke said, "Thank you" in his tiny sweet voice that sounds a bit like "tank you."

Sweet

2009-06-13T21:36:00.000-07:00

Emmett still doesn't like to write, so he doesn't get much practice. He can produce all of the letters, but it's not easy for him yet. Luke, on the other hand, is interested in writing. He likes to trace letters and tries to reproduce them on his own, though he hasn't mastered many yet.

This morning Emmett was writing something when Luke looked over and with completely genuine two-year-old awe said, "You're really good at writing letters!" It was such a sweet compliment, and it reminded me what I should aim for when I'm encouraging him.

Daredevil

2009-06-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

Luke likes to jump off of things. He jumps off of our bed (which is not very high), and he jumps off the couch. Then he decided to jump off of the back of Jenny's chair, which is about as tall as he is. David and I told him it was pretty high, maybe not such a good idea.

A few minutes later he had collected two throw pillows from the couch, Henry's round pillow, a pillow from my bed, and draped a quilt over the whole collection to make a landing pad. I was still concerned that he could hit the door, so he jumped while holding my hand and all was well.

6 weeks old

2009-06-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

We visited with Rebecca today (the midwife who delivered Luke and Henry), and she weighed Henry. He's now reached 13 pounds even. So from birth to two weeks he put on 19 ounces, and in the four weeks following that he put on another 37 ounces! It's actually quite similar to Emmett's growth. At this age, Luke weighed about 10 pounds.

Henry update

2009-06-08T20:41:00.000-07:00

Henry's gaze has morphed from aimless wandering as a newborn to full of intent these days. He looks at things attentively now, moving from one to another with purpose.

He's also started cooing! Although most of his noises are angry ones, he occasionally will just talk to you with sweet little happy noises.

Smiles are becoming more frequent as well, especially while he's awake.

And while we're talking about tiny little things, when Henry is just waking up and I pick him up, he throws his head back, arches his body and pulls in his legs so his bum sticks out, and pulls his hands to his shoulders while stretching his elbows up high, making little squeaky noises and turning his head from side to side. It's adorable.

Narrating his life

2009-06-08T20:36:00.001-07:00

When Luke is pretending, he voices his actions. For example, when he's stirring something in the kitchen he'll say, "stir" or when he's turning knobs he'll say, "turn" and when he's using the cookie cutters he'll say, "cut."

Today in the hall he was moving a lid, and while he did it he said, "move." Then he moved it with his foot and he said, "kick." It's the first time I've noticed him doing it when he's not pretending.

And for anyone who is keeping track, Luke still says "mine" in place of "my." (as in "I dropped mine fork.") I don't know when he'll outgrow this one - sometimes Emmett mimics Luke with that usage, too.

Lucky shot.

2009-06-04T16:30:00.000-07:00

When Emmett was born, I spent hours with a camera pointed at at him. It was easy to catch lots of facial expressions - yawns, sneezes, smiles, everything! With Henry, not so much. He has started smiling occasionally, and not just in his sleep. I figured it would be a while before he'd smile regularly enough to get a picture. Last night he looked cute in David's arms so I grabbed the camera. You can imagine my surprise when a fleeting grin went by. Even more surprising was that I managed to catch it!

They're just better than we are.

2009-06-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

Have you seen Wipeout? Since you're probably better than us, too, maybe you've seen a commercial for it? Anyway, David and I were watching it when Emmett and Luke showed up. We decided that while a steady diet of laughing at the misfortunes of others wasn't a good idea, it would be ok for them to see (and laugh) a little.

Then something amazing happened. They weren't laughing at the wipeouts, they were cheering for the contestants! When a contestant successfully completed an obstacle, they'd both jump up and down on the couch in celebration. David and I never considered that as a possible way to watch the show...

There is a downside, though. Emmett now wants to create his own "wipeout zones" for Luke to navigate.

I swear we're not studying the states!

2009-05-23T12:49:00.000-07:00

Today in the car Emmett asked me if I knew what an Oregon Solo was. When I said no, he said it was a piano solo. Strange, but I just replied, "Huh. Ok."

Then David started laughing. "It's an organ solo, not Oregon!" he said quietly. Again, I'm wondering if I should tell Emmett.

Louisiana

2009-05-21T15:22:00.000-07:00

The drawings are actually called sona (singular: lusona - that's where we get Louisiana). Now I can't decide if I want to tell him or not.

Really?

2009-05-20T20:43:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of months, I really haven't been doing any structured learning stuff with Emmett. The end of the pregnancy was tough, and now I have a newborn! He's been reading lots, of course, so something is going into his head. Today I got a glimpse of some of it.

He's been talking to me about fractions, and I wanted to introduce him to the terms "numerator" and "denominator" so I wrote a fraction and pointed to the top number and told him it was the numerator. He seemed to recognize the word, so I asked him if he knew it already - he did (from reading The Number Devil). I asked him if he knew what the bottom number was called and he said, "denominator."

He's also been reading his topology book a lot, and filling up his notebook with drawings that he calls "Louisianas." These are drawings that have a bunch of dots, and then a curve that winds around them, leaving some inside and some outside of the curve. I'm not sure what the topology book says about them, so I guess I should check that out...

At bedtime tonight, he was apparently reading book about senses. He came out to tell David and I that he read about a guy who's brain assigned shapes to tastes. Laughing so hard he almost couldn't get it out, he told us, "He once said his chicken dinner had too many corners in it!"

A baby who sleeps?

2009-05-19T09:53:00.001-07:00

It's kind of strange having a baby who sleeps a lot, and is disgruntled only a little (pausing briefly to knock on every piece of wood I can find!). It really emphasizes the "fourth trimester" that I've heard about. Henry mostly eats and sleeps, waking up enough to look around a bit and wave his arms to keep his brain development on track. Otherwise, he's pretty much still gestating.

His fingers are much more coordinated than they were when they were born - instead of each one having a mind of its own, they all grasp together now. His keeps his legs extended much of the time, too, rather than tucked up near his body. This adds emphasis to his size!

He's already lost some of the squishy-ness of a newborn, in which their face is distorted by whatever they're leaning on, including their own shoulders. He still squirms, though. My favorite is when he arches his back with his arms pulled in up high near his sideways turned head and his legs pulled in like a frog. He'll usually do that when I pick him up while he's sleeping. Maybe that's the origin of stretching when you wake up. I just love squishy, squirmy, cuddly newborns.

Jinx!

2009-05-15T13:50:00.000-07:00

I don't want to jinx it, but I've been out of the house with all three kids twice now, and it's gone great both times. We went to Target a few days ago with a relatively short list, and it went fine. The hardest thing was moving Luke in and out of the cart with Henry in a sling. Henry did his part and slept the whole time. I nursed him in the car before going home, but the older boys were patient and didn't complain about that at all.

Today, we went to Ikea, and it was fine again. I do think I have to change the way we get out of the house a little. Typically, Henry is asleep while I get the boys ready and strap them into the car. Then I grab Henry, change his diaper, put him in his carseat, and head out. Today, though, he was hungry. Not far from home I stopped to nurse him because he hadn't settled down in the car. Again, Emmett and Luke waited patiently and I don't think it even occurred to them to complain (whew!). In the future, I think I'll be sure to nurse Henry just before getting in the car, if he's interested. After nursing today, Henry slept in the car and in the carrier at Ikea.

Mostly, I'm reporting this here so if it changes dramatically, I can at least remember what it was like when it was relatively easy...

Ouch!

2009-05-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

Twice now, Henry has started a big yelling fit when he accidentally grabbed a big fist full of hair and pulled it.

Windows to the soul

2009-05-15T07:42:00.001-07:00

Now two weeks old, Henry is making clear eye contact. Sometimes on the changing table, he'll make eye contact by looking at you in the mirror. He really seems to be studying us now.

Hands

2009-05-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

Henry has very long fingers and toes. My middle finger isn't longer than my palm, but Henry's is! When he was first born and his fingers moved around with minds of their own, his hands reminded me of anemones with fingers as little independent tentacles.

Mobile

2009-05-14T11:07:00.001-07:00

I got out our old mobile, to see if Henry would like looking at it. Of course, Emmett and Luke were fascinated and played with it for a long time once it was out. It plays some classical music, so Emmett read "Beethoven" as "Benhoven," and "Bach" as "Botch."

Henry does watch the mobile. In fact, he can already track it both with his eyes and by moving his head to keep his gaze on one of the elements. That is a big improvement over when he was first born, when his eyes didn't even track together, much less fix on an object.

2 week checkup

2009-05-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

Henry's 2 week stats:

10 lb 11 ounces
22 inches long
38.6 cm head circumference

I thought he gained a lot of weight, so I checked on Emmett's and Luke's numbers. In the first two weeks, Emmett put on 19.5 ounces. For some reason, Luke's first real doctor visit was at three weeks, at which point he had also put on 20 ounces, so I guess it's just normal (for us, at least).

Useful Work

2009-05-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

The gardeners come on Tuesdays to mow the lawn, so on Monday nights David clears the lawn of dog poop and toys. This evening, I asked the boys to help get the toys off the lawn, and they ran outside to help! Often "help" is just playing in the vicinity of where help is needed, but this time they actually took all the toys off the lawn!

Emmett is old enough now to be very helpful, and he has been great helping me since Henry was born. But tonight, not only was Emmett helpful, Luke really helped too! I guess he sees Emmett's example and wants to be helpful, too. At Luke's age and without a role model, Emmett wasn't doing useful work at all.

The Daddy

2009-05-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

Luke has been overtired for a while now - it's difficult to get him a good nap and we just haven't had the time to devote to that. Sometimes "overtired" leads to nighttime disturbances - luckily there haven't been many.

When I snuggle Luke to sleep, he always wants to touch this mole on my chest. David has been the one responding to him at night lately, and since David doesn't have a mole, Luke has a different snuggle routine with him. He takes both hands and grabs David around the neck and hangs on. David says it's like an odd "hanging on to my head" hug.