Christmas at Our House

Sick kids, packing, and some Christmas cheer.

Seth is 6 months old!

Today, Seth is 6 months old! I can not believe how old he is getting. This has been a tough and busy month for Seth. Seth got the flu at the beginning of the month and was pretty sick - lucky, he got on TamiFlu and it was pretty short lived. But wow - you should have seen how they reacted at the doctor office - they all wore masks and we had to either leave via the back door or cover him completely with a blanket b/c it could be H1N1. Crazy. We had about a week off which was crazy between a study I was doing here, Katsu defending, and his defense party. And then, both boys got a cold and croup, but Seth definitely got croup relatively bad (not bad enough to go to the ER or anything, but he's still been pretty miserable). It's so sad to hear him cry with his hoarse little voice. I'm just hoping that the kids will both be well before we go to Japan on Monday ... but I'm starting to doubt it. Andrew has been sick for well over a week, now.

Okay, back to Seth. Seth sits now! It seemed to happen really fast, but the last couple weeks he sits perfectly and rarely falls over. This is my absolute favorite milestone of babies. He will sit and play with toys pretty well by himself and loves to play with all kinds of toys now. Andrew is still sweet and brings him lots of toys to play with.

Seth gives us kisses all the time, which I think is new, too. It is so sweet and I just love it. He loves to be kissed and held and his whole face just lights up.

Seth started on solid food this month. He was just so eager and mealtimes were getting too hard so we couldn't wait any longer. He likes rice cereal a lot, but is not so sure about peas or sweet potatoes yet (that's the only baby food we've tried). Since he's had croup, though, he has no desire to eat, so hopefully when he's better, he feel like it again.

Seth still naps well, but has been waking up a couple times a night. Not too bad - but I'm getting more tired. But there's no point in trying to influence this with the enormous jet lag we'll be getting from Japan and then moving two weeks later. We'll just throw all those sleep disturbers in right now.

Seth loves going on adventures. He gets so excited when we put him in the car seat and we are going somewhere. He still hates long car rides (like longer than about 10 minutes) and freaks out, but it's getting better (I hope). Whenever Seth gets excited, he kicks his arms and legs a lot and almost shakes. He gets very excited when Katsu gets home (from shopping or whatever, since Katsu doesn't have to go into work anymore!!!!).

Seth loves finger games, especially "Tommy Thumb" and loves doing airplane on my knees. He also still loves being in his sling.

We are excited to celebrate our first Christmas with little Seth!

Andrew is 31 months old!

Andrew turned 31 months a few days ago and I am just getting a moment to write a quick post. Andrew doesn't seem to change as much from month to month now, although his hair keeps getting longer. He is terrified of getting it cut and gets upset when I even mention it. Maybe when we're in Japan we can go to one of those cute kid hair cuts places and clean him up a bit.

The only other major thing is potty-training. But I am still relatively lazy on this. I would consider Andrew potty trained as long as we are at home and he is in underwear with no pants on. He will pretty much go all by himself with no accidents. But put a Pull-up on the kid or leave the house and he has 0 interest. It's not worth it to me at the moment to put him in underwear when we leave the house b/c he'll have an accident and I'd just rather wait on that, but in his mind Pull-up = diaper = freedom! Since we are traveling to Japan and then moving, I don't think it is worth pushing it.

Andrew is still a little character and full of energy. Katsu's coworker babysat the boys on Tuesday night so we could go out and celebrate Katsu's defense. After the 2 hours (or maybe less) that we were gone, his coworker was completely exhausted. It is really tiring to chase Andrew (and boy does he love to run away from you and hide) and also to try to keep him quiet and not wake up Seth. He is so loud!!!

Andrew is still an awesome brother. I can ask Andrew to "watch" Seth while I am doing something and he will talk so sweetly to him and bring him toys and play with him. I love it.

Andrew is fascinated with death. He talks about it often, especially about Jesus's crucifixion. I am trying to play up the resurrection bit, too, so he gets a more complete picture. This week as I was putting him to nap or bed or something, he says to me "Mom, when I am old, I will die. But then I will be resurrected and alive again". So, I guess he is getting it. But he always asks if/when he or me or Katsu is going to die. He also has associated ambulances with sickness and death (we do see/hear a lot of them since we live so close to the hospital, so we talk about them a lot). He will say kids die in ambulances, which I try to correct, but he is not really listening a/o understanding. When he plays with his toy ambulance, he will say that it is killing kids and hurting them. Not quite sure what to make of that.

Andrew uses this high pitched voice when he is pretending which is so cute. And he is pretending all the time. I swear, it takes the kid an hour to eat a meal because he eats some and then he pretends his food is people or cars or something and they are talking to each other and it just takes forever.

Andrew loves to sing now. He gets so excited about the ABC song, though he doesn't really have it all right. He always skips R-V and then sings "Double-E X Y Z. Next time won't you A-B-C". I should probably start teaching him letters or something, but I am really laissez-faire about the whole early learning thing. I feel like he will learn it eventually - why push it? Heck, he could just be finishing school when he's 30 just like his dad. Or when his kids are graduating high school like his grandpa? Lots of time there.

Andrew is loving Christmas and especially Christmas songs. He loves Jingle Bells and the 12 days of Christmas (I think he can sing through the first five days all by himself). He also knows most of the reindeer names. I guess listening to the Christmas station on the radio (there are 2 in Detroit) must rub off on him because I definitely am not teaching him this stuff. He is also especially excited about Christmas lights and Santa Claus. He asks almost every day if Santa Claus is coming. He loves the snow, too, and wants to play in it every day. If it were a little warmer than a high of 20, maybe I would be motivated to take Seth out with him, but right now that seems too cold for a baby.

We love Andrew.

Dr. Katsu

This morning, Katsu defended his PhD dissertation. From now on, he will only respond to Dr. Katsu. Just kidding, but we are very proud of him.