Seth is 18 months

This won't be a long post because we are in Texas right now and I don't have any pictures with me. Poor Seth just came down with a bad fever and croup last night. I swear, he gets croup more than anyone I know. This on top of some tough teething of his molars. Poor kid. I think he is having a fun time here, though. He still prefers if me or Katsu is around all the time or he will cry and try to find us.

Not too much new with Seth this month. He is talking a lot more, but I don't keep track of his words, so I don't know how many. Of course, most of them are just the first syllable, so he is still hard to understand. But he does have quite a bit to say. Between that and his vigorous "yes" head nods, he is pretty easy to understand. He still doesn't say no - how lucky am I that my kids don't learn that word for a LONG time.

Seth is still obsessed with cars, but that is somewhat being overpowered by trains. He LOVES to play with trains at home and it causes lots of fights. THe boys in general seem to be fighting over toys A LOT because they have the exact same interests and want to play with the same toys. Also, Seth wants to be just like Andrew and tries to do everything he does. I think the boys will be excited tomorrow morning!

Seth plays pretty independently, as long as Andrew isn't in the way. He also loves to be read to and is finally beyond board books. He still likes board books, but he can last through several picture books. He loves everything trucks/cars/trains, Richard Scarry, Boynton's Going to Bed book, Eric Carle's from Head to Toe, and Dora books. He even will say "Map" and tries to say "Swiper no swiping". So cute!

Seth is still a huge monkey. He will do everything on all the big kid playgrounds. He loves to play chase. He loves to throw things, especially balls. Katsu is even teaching him to kick - maybe he will be a ball player. He really really loves sticks. His favorite thing is to run away from us or go jumping and sliding off the couch. He is tough and hardly cries and is always covered in cuts and bruises. Sometimes he will be bleeding and won't even sit still long enough for me to figure out where the blood is coming from. So "all boy", whatever that means.

Seth is a sensitive soul. He gets his feelings hurt when we scold him and he runs and hides to calm down (total opposite of Andrew needed to cuddle). He also needs a schedule. He tells us when he is ready for a nap and is very upset if we deviate from the dinner-bath-bed routine.

Fun things for Seth this month:
-Christmas light displays (in Belleville and Rhema in Oklahom
-Seeing Santa at the mall (from afar ... we never quite got to visiting him this year)
-Last times at "zoo school"
-Transportation museum
-First trip to the zoo all by himself (i.e. without mommy)
-Creche exhibit (Seth LOVES looking for baby Jesus)
-Precious Moments chapel in Missouri
-GRANDMA AND GRANDPA's!

A Flowchart: Should I send you a Christmas Card

Made by Katsu, recommended for everyone.

Andrew's preschool Christmas presentation

Andrew's preschool presentation

Andrew is another month older

I’m not sure what to post about this month.  Nothing very exciting in the last month.  Andrew is pretty much doing the same things as last month.  He seems to kind of be in an onery sort of mood, in general.  More fits than usual – I had almost forgot about those, but now he has fits regularly.  Little ones, though, so he recovers quickly. 

He doesn’t like to play with toys much anymore, or at least not ours.  He much prefers to turn the house into some sort of jungle gym (drives me nuts!) or play pretend, sort of things.  I think he would like some sort of boy Barbie sort of toy – like how my brother had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kind, but I’m not quite sure what to get him.  I feel like he just mopes around the house half the day when we aren’t reading and he isn’t constructing something.  I feel like he keeps getting into trouble.  I think he is probably lonely too and really needs to hang out with other kids, but I am just a total loss about what to do about that. 

Otherwise … let’s see.  Andrew still says funny things all the time.  Still obsessed with when/who he will marry and when he will die.  He also compulsively asks “What’s your name?”, all the time.  Drives me nuts.  He still likes to talk with all kinds of pretend words, too, which similarly drives me nuts.  He is such a talker and has a huge vocab, though.  I can never believe the words he will say – I have no idea where he learns them.

Andrew is sweet with Seth when they aren’t beating up on each other.  He likes to say how they are going to be dancers when they grow up because they like to hold hands.  I am not sure the exact logic, but its cute.

He is really really looking forward to going to Texas for Christmas and talks about his relatives ALL the time.  He wants to call and talk on Skype with them all the time.  It’s cute, I wish that we had some sort of family that lived closer.  Or heck, even friends.  Oh, well.

Fun things this month:

- Thanksgiving, just us.  Andrew kept talking about how he didn’t like pie all month, but then a couple days before he said he wanted pie, so I decided to make one.  Which, of course, he didn’t eat.  The boys mostly just wanted to eat cranberry sauce.

- Black Friday shopping – which Andrew did not enjoy.  Oh, well.

- Walking through the Christmas lights at Tilles Park.

- Seeing the Christmas lights at Belleville.

- Seeing the Transportation museum for the first time.  It was fun to climb on trains and see how they work, just like Thomas.

- Visiting the zoo.

- Play dates with a little boy in the ward.  They love to play trains together.

- Fireworks watching from our apartment for Clayton’s winter festival.

- Seeing the creche at the ward building.  Andrew and Seth were pretty much NOT impressed with this at all.  By the end, they were totally acting out, so we left.  Andrew liked dressing up for the creche picture.

Funny Things

Andrew says so many things, but this is pretty part and parcel for how Andrew is lately ...

Andrew: Mom - I missed you so much today. I was going to call you but there wasn't a phone .
Me: Why did you miss me so much?
Andrew: Because I love you very much. And I love Peyton very much. And she loves me very much.

Ha ha ha ... when do cooties start? Seriously, this boy is intense. For his girl with the little hair bow.

Seth is 17 month old! (a week ago…)

Amanda’s trying to finish a stocking that she is cross-stitching for Seth, so I am writing this post instead. I think her cross-stitching gets more intense and complex every time. She’s been cross-stitching since I met her, and for the last 3 or 4 of these it’s been way beyond a “normal” cross-stitch hobby. I tried one of them like 5 years ago. I spent like 2 hours to get like two inch square or something, and that was for a single color (that cross-stitch is probably buried in basement unfinished somewhere). Hers has like 128 colors and I don’t know, like 200000 stitches or something? You know, like this one hanging in our living room has Jesus tending sheep and stuff. There are trees in the background, and I think the leaves from a tree growing next to where Jesus is sitting has like 7 different colors, and then like the leaves in the trees that are further away in a background has additional 7 different colors and stuff. I am not exaggerating.

Anyway, this is supposed to be about Seth, which is appropriate because this stocking has it being prepared for a long time, I mean like two years. And she doesn’t like work on it few days and leaves it and then comes back several weeks later. She has been most consistent and works on it frequently, like probably few hours every few days. Except for last two months because Andrew told her that the “stocking will not be ready for Christmas, mommy”, so it’s like a competition now and she works on it basically every day. She works on her dissertation every day except Sunday, but every minute she isn’t working on it (codes running, watching our tv show, me giving kids a bath, etc.) she is working on her cross-stitch. Sunday is her marathon day because that’s the only time she can legitimately take a break from her research. So in last two months she spent like 5% of her existence on this stocking. It might be ready, we have three weeks left. I won’t be surprised if she cross-stitches on the way down driving to Texas.

I have to like think hard on how much Seth has grown since a month ago, because a month ago was like Halloween, and I don’t live everyday thinking, “okay it has been a month since the last month of XXday, now what in our lives has changed?” I do have a webpage for when Seth was 16 months old, but I am just too lazy to check what has changed about him since, so I am just going to tell you what he’s been up to, and what he has accomplished IMO. In traditional bullet points,

- Seth won’t stop asking us to read books. The first thing he does when I walk in the front door is to smile, then he grabs the nearest book and goes “baaaa!!” He wants me to put him on my lap and then read on and on and on. Today, I came home at 5:45p and then we read 7 books between then and the dinner at 6:05p. He wants books read within the first few minutes after he wakes up. He loves the library and knows when we drive by and yells if we don’t stop by. And bigger the book, the better it is. We have several books that are like 200 pages long and has like 10 different stories in it. He loves them. It’s also amazing that he can carry them, because he is like 22lbs and these books are at least 5lbs. He is pretty strong. Yesterday he got the blue encyclopedia out and wanted us to read it to him.

- Speaking of being able to carry, the dude is tough. The other day Amanda was working out with weights, and Seth was copying her with the same weight Amanda was working out with. It was 3lbs, but he was like taking steps with Amanda, going along with her workout video. He already does summersaults and constantly climbs and jumps off the couch (on the front AND back side!) I don’t think Amanda has posted on this, but Friday morning I take kids, and often I take them to the park. About four months ago I found out that Seth can climb ladders. He climbs the normal ladder, but he also climbs one of those hanging rope ladders that swings as you try to pull yourself up. And the thing was like 7 feet tall and he did it without being helped. He has no fear because he basically thinks he can do everything Andrew can. Andrew didn’t know how to climb a ladder until he was like 2 and half year old. He is often found carrying (not just pushing but actually lifting it up) wagons for his blocks and cans of soup in both of his hands. He also pushes adult chairs.

- Trucks. Fire trucks. Dump trucks. Tractors. Cars. Taxis. Bus. Bikes. Planes. Mail trucks. He would say “Woooooo~~!!” as he runs and points at any of them and says “FIRE TRUUCK!!” and then we have to correct him that it’s (often) not a fire truck, and it’s one of the things mentioned above. He loves them all.

- We mentioned that he dressed as a red dragon for the Halloween in other posts, but he loves making sounds to pretend that he is scared at things since. Everytime we walk to the area we did trick or treating, he goes “AAAAHHH!!!” and pretend like he is scared. Every time he looks at anything that remotely resembles ghosts or spiders or Halloween decorations (including Christmas decorations at the stores), he goes “AAAHH!!!”.

- He does this low pitch “GRRRRR!! sound” when he seems dragons/lions/tigers/alligators/hippos, etc. The pitch is low, you would think it wasn’t coming from him. It’s identical to MY low pitch sound, and I have no idea how he makes them because his voice is pretty high pitch. He seems to enjoy making this sound and does it often when reading books. Like Andrew, Seth excels in finding these animals and cars in anything that comes to our eyesight. You open a page, and half a second later he growls and then another two seconds later you find a small gorilla drawn on a t-shirt a boy (out of like 40) that’s on the page.

- He eats a lot now. He is still somewhat picky, but he eats x4~5 to what he used to before.

I am tired of typing incoherent sentences so I am going to stop here. I am too tired to revise.

Andrew is 3 and a half!

Boy, has Andrew been a handful this month!  I really feel like this week we have just been butting heads.  Hopefully, this is just a stage (or maybe I’ll become a better mom and this is just a stage for me?).  I don’t know what the issue is – maybe he needs to get out more or have more friends???  I guess we’ve all been sick a lot which puts a lot of damper on the fun.  Well, on to Andrew.

Andrew loves preschool and he is in love (his words not mine) with a little girl, Peyton, in his class.  He says that he is only friends with one person, a little girl without boobs (goodness, that must be how he distinguishes girls from women, I guess … heaven knows what he will be like as a teenager).  She has a little hair bow he likes to talk about.  He tells me that “I love her and she loves me and she should love me”.  Ha ha ha.  According to his preschool teachers, he waits for her when he gets to preschool, to the point where he has “forgotten” how to find his name tag or cubby.  I can’t believe his academic performance is already effected by girls!  They also hold hands and he wants Peyton to do everything with him.

At least, according to his teachers, he is pretty easily redirected.  And otherwise, he is doing great in preschool.  He even draws there!  People, even!  When I tried to get him to draw at home, it’s still mostly a failure – he did practice his scissors, though.  He is a master negotiator, even at preschool.  His teachers said he says things like “Why would we want to go inside when it’s so beautiful outside?”.  Oh, the things you can learn at a parent teacher conference.

As I said, Andrew and I are really butting heads.  Mostly because of his favorite play things.

• Taking electric cords and tying them around things to make gates.
• Using the futons, blankets, chairs, etc. to make:
• “playgrounds” to slide down
• gates, that I am not allowed to cross and that block one side of the room of from the other
• houses, where he sits underneath and pretends to be a dog or other animal
• stages, where he loves to perform and do dances and circuses – he loves to say “Ladies and gentleman – watch me.”
• pile everything he can find – DVD cases, books, toys – in a huge pile on the floor that is supposed to be some sort of a house or a gate or something.
• Using tools to fix me – mostly which means injure me in some way, though I think it is mostly accidental.
• Put on his music or the piano music very loud and at the highest tempo.
• Throwing things – seriously, are we regressing???

Andrew is quite the conversationalist lately.  He loves to talk about all sorts of things.  “Mom, why did you get married?” – we hear that very often.  He also likes to talk about how we need a new baby.  After all, he told me, I still have eggs in my tummy … ha ha ha.  Good thing Andrew isn’t planning our family, he wants 10 kids!  His talks a lot lately about how he wants to be a mommy or a daddy.  When I told him, he had to be a daddy, he said he wanted to be a Daddy-Queen, which dances with a sister-Princess or something.  Ha ha ha.  He also wants to be a ballerina and a princess. 

Andrew is a sweetie and very sensitive.  He loves us all so much and tells us all the time.  He loves all the extended family and talks about them often and how hard it is to wait for Christmas to see them.  He wants to call on the phone or Skype to everyone every day!  We have been reading books and talking about being thankful this month – he contributes lots of things he’s grateful for.  He also is starting to be concerned about the homeless, which we have been reading about and talking about this month.  I really am trying to find somewhere where we can volunteer together, but it’s hard to find places that allow little kids.  We’ll see.

Andrew dreams about cookies most nights.  Isn’t that cute?

Fun things we did this month:

• Trick or treating!  At home, at the zoo, and in St Charles.
• Trunk or treating.
• Truck day.
• Preschool.
• Circus.
• Pumpkinland.
• Apple picking.

Halloween Festivities: St Charles Main St, Trunk or Treat, & Boo at the Zoo

We are trying out different Halloween festivities here, but so far they don’t really compare with similar ones in Ann Arbor.  Everything is just so crowded here.

We went over to St Charles Main Street on Friday afternoon for trick or treating at the shops.  It was SO crowded.  We waited in a long single file line and walked past like 15 shops, maybe.  By the time we were heading back, most of the shops were out of candy.  I didn’t say anything, because the boys really enjoyed it.  Andrew was thrilled by the (small) amount of candy he got.  Seth loved seeing dogs, firetrucks, horses, and the other kids’ costumes.  I didn’t get any pictures because it was tough wrangling both kids off the street.  Too bad it wasn’t more fun because I think the main street there is just SO cute.

We got home in time to pick up Katsu and head to the ward Trunk or Treat.  I wasn’t sure how it would go, since it was way past bed time, sigh.  But it was fine.  The kids pretended to eat chili, then we had a costume parade.  There was a lot of cars and Andrew got lots of loot – he loved it.  Seth was mostly excited about the cars.  He would run from car to car and point at the tires and say “Truck.  Truck.  Truck.”  He also LOVED the fire truck.  He also loved all the decorations.  (I took Seth around, so I have a better idea of how he went). 

This morning, we woke up and headed off to Boo at the Zoo.  We had so many fond memories of Halloween at the Toledo Zoo.  But this was TOTALLY different.  We got there shortly after 9 when it opened and it was PACKED.  PACKED.  There were three “candy trails”.  On each trail, there was from 5-6 stops where you got a couple of pieces of candy or maybe a coupon or stickers or something.  We ran into our friend Jennie and their son Owen, and so we all waited for the first candy trail.  The whole thing took like an hour.  For a whole ~10 pieces of candy, some stickers, and a bottle of Gatorade.  It was awful!  And we didn’t even see any animals.  Our boys didn’t mind too much, but there was NO way we were going to wait in line for the other 2 candy trails so we went and saw the animals in half the zoo.  But seriously, we come and see the animals about every week.  I don’t think we will be doing boo at the zoo again.  But the boys still had fun and took a good nap on the way home.  They were tired!

I am surprised about how many comments we have gotten on the boys costumes.  In Ann Arbor, lots of the kids had Old Navy costumes, but I have only seen one other one so far and we have probably seen hundreds to thousands of costumes!  We got Andrew’s new dragon costumes for only $10 (on sale and with coupon) and they are very warm.  We are huge fans!

Pumpkinland

A boy in Andrew’s preschool class had a birthday party this week at Pumpkinland at a farm in nearby Maryland Heights.  The day was COLD, much colder than I expected, since most of the week before we’d hit 80’s every day and it was down in the 40s with a high in the 50s and lots of wind.  The kids were all crying about the cold, but they still managed to have some fun.  Andrew was too scared to do some of the big slides, but he went down the zip line all by himself without any encouragement.  Seth just wanted to “ride” the tricycles the whole time.  The favorite part was probably the hayride and Andrew getting to see his favorite food growing, broccoli.  Okay, Andrew would probably say it was the cake, but you know.  The mom was so sweet and had made tie dye pumpkin shirts for all the kids, including Seth, with their names on them!

Halloween Preschool Performance

Tuesday, Andrew’s class had their Halloween “performance”.  We all went to his music class at 9:15 after drop off.  The kids were supposed to sing and do hand movements to the songs and other similar things.  By the end, some of the girls did.  But mostly, it was just the music teacher singing, poor thing.  Andrew did nothing.  At all.  At the end, all the kids were supposed to lay on the floor and then get up when she counted to 3.  The kids were good at waiting, but they never popped up.  Maybe someday we will get to putting the video on.  But for now, some pictures.

Looking cool at drop off:

The performance:

Halloween Food

We tried to have some festive food this week.

Grilled cheese ghosts

Mummy Meatloaf – okay, it was supposed to be white cheese, but we can all pretend.  (the boys didn’t really like meatloaf, I was pretty surprised)

Stuffed pumpkins – this was delicious!  Good thing, because we have been acquiring lots of pumpkins (4 more mini ones), and I can’t bear to waste food.

 

Spider Raviolis – okay, my attempt to make a web (or anything crafty or creative, for that matter, was a total fail), but the kids mostly ate them.

Also, chili, but no pic because I forgot the cheese bat cutouts (the sister missionaries ended up dropping by for dinner, and I pretty much forgot).  And pumpkin pasta tomorrow which is delicious (a pumpkin sauce that tastes pretty similar to a vodka sauce – yum!).

Last Saturday

Last Saturday, Katsu took the boys to an event sponsored by our Parents As Teachers.  It was a boys dream come true – TRUCKS!  And the boys got there early enough to even see the helicopter land.  Since most of what Seth says is trucks, he was in paradise.  He even climbed in one of the trucks all by himself.  Andrew loved it, too.

Seth is 16 months (yesterday)

I can’t believe I forgot to update about Seth this weekend when I actually have time to do so.  I guess I am too busy working on his stocking, and even with all that effort, it probably still won’t get done by Christmas.  Oh, well.

• At Seth’s last dr. appt, his doctor was concerned about his weight.  He has only gained 10 oz in the last 3 months.  I am supposed to be weaning him, and he is nursing less than before, but honestly he has 0 interest in weaning.  I am totally ready.  Oh, well.
• Seth does not like to eat.  I do not understand AT ALL.  And when he does eat, he doesn’t eat very much.  There doesn’t seem to even be any food that he really loves – maybe fruit snacks?  Foods he usually likes – black beans, tofu, oranges, apples (he actually LOVES apples), berries, string cheese, yogurt, chicken nuggets, meat, mac n cheese.  Usually likes, meaning he will eat like 3 or so bites.  When I guesstimate the number of calories he has eaten it is SO small, like 300 maybe.  Half the time, if I give him a cookie, he just holds it and doesn’t eat it.  Weird.
• The last couple days are getting a little better for him drinking milk, but usually if he even sees the milk carton, he KNOWS and refuses to drink.
• His vocab seems to be increasing, mostly transportation words – car, truck, dump truck, fire truck, plane, train, etc.  I think some food words or something would be nice.  Oh, well.  I think at least 50% of the words he say are “truck”.
• Seth loves to roar and growl and does it for most animals and dinosaurs.  So cute.  I hope he does it for Halloween with his dragon costume.
• Seth LOVES trucks and cars and play with them, putting them in lines like Andrew, having them run along books or DVD cases on tables and making car noises.
• Seth also loves to play with dinosaurs and having them roar at us and each other.
• He also entertains himself by making block towers with Duplo blocks.
• He loves us reading him, but unlike Andrew, likes to hear the same books over and over – his new favorites are books about dinosaurs, tractors, and trucks.
• He has a cute sense of humor and fun.  He likes to laugh, especially when Andrew does something funny.  He pretended to be scared and screamed at all the decorated houses we passed by today.  He does that when Andrew dresses up as a ghost, too.  He’s not really scared, though.
• He has a good sense of direction – he gets upset when we are in the stroller and don’t turn the right way to the park.  He also recognizes the zoo and the park and the library from blocks away.
• Seth has a temper, which usually expresses himself with throwing things and sometimes with hitting and pulling hair.  He gets mad frequently.
• Seth is a Mama’s boy and still has a hard time being separated.  One day, I went to visit our date-night sitters, but not to leave Seth there.  Seth cried and was not happy at all about it.  I am hoping that if we start adjusting him now, nursery won’t be too traumatic, but I’m not sure.
• Seth is also shy when Andrew is not around.  When Andrew is around, he is running around and playing and having a blast.  When Andrew is gone, he is much more tenative and stays by my side.

Fun things this month:

• Circus
• Zoo
• Botanical Gardens
• A new car seat (but still rear facing … heck, until he gains a few more ounces, he could still be in the infant one).
• Truck show at the high school field
• Measles rash! and hives! and visit to allergist!
• Apple picking.