Seth is 21 months old!

Another month older and I still can’t believe how fast he is growing.  They just seem to grow faster and faster.  (Well, maybe Seth isn’t growing physically that much … but, you know).

It’s funny – Seth had an assessment this month with our Parents as Teachers person and while he did well, we were noting some concern on his speech – he almost never makes the end sounds of words and just enunciates so poorly that I only understand him about half the time.  But then, within a week, he has just starting babbling away.  I would think he heard what we were talking about, but he was pretty busy playing with the trains.

So, Seth has a lot to say.  He is starting to really talk in sentences, albeit short ones.  He said “Andrew did it”, the other day, which Katsu believes was his first real sentence.  But the big part is he is finally using verbs.  And a lot.  And all of a sudden.  And his speech is becoming more clear/deliberate, though there still needs to be work.  His best words:  firetruck!  dump truck!  And he is sure trying to make ambulance, police car, and helicopter as clear, as well.  He is obsessed with emergency vehicles of all kinds.  Luckily, we live on a major street and see many of the vehicles all the time.

Seth is still a small eater.  Huge lover of eggs.  And drinking milk (and spilling everywhere because he is too reckless).  And strawberries and blueberries and bananas and grapes – almost goes into hysterics if we don’t buy some every time he sees them.

Seth is still a wild climbing monkey.  His other favorite word – jump!  He climbs up everything and all the other parents just stare.  I don’t know what to do – he is off before I can get him.

Andrew and Seth have a hit or miss relationship.  They love each other and hug a lot.  But they fight.  A lot.  But Seth also wants to be exactly like Andrew.  They play well together, too.  They love to egg each other not – to burp excessively, to do naughty things, etc. etc.  Seth has been going through a big biting phase this month.  But he is so hard to discipline.  When he does something bad, he smiles/laughs about it, but I can tell that he feels bad and just doesn’t know what to do about it.  He also likes to hit.  I am trying to discipline best I can, but I hope the phase passes quickly.

They play some with their toys, but Seth (and Andrew) loves to wear a cape, a mask, and have a wand (for at least a week, this is also what he wore out of the house every day).  Hats are great – but Seth’s favorite – a Pull-Up!  Add on enough Mardi Gras beads that you are almost tilting over.  Activity 1:  Get on the “stage” – i.e. the bed – and jump off and dance.  Repeat.  With the piano playing music full blast.   Activity 2:  Pull out chairs or couch cushions or futons or whatever and create an obstacle course to climb on / jump off and circle and repeat.  Activity 3:  Find every book that features an emergency vehicle.  Read.  Say “Again”.  Repeat.  Activity 4:  When mom is not paying attention, run to bathroom.  Turn on water.  What can I put in water?  What can I put in toilet?  How much water can I spill on floor?  Etc. Etc. Etc.  Two boys create so much trouble.

We went to Branson this month with my parents for a long long weekend.  Seth, surprise surprise, was completely warmed up to my parents from day one.  True, he called them both “Grandpa”, but he wanted to be with them!  I loved it.  So, he is SLOWLY getting over separation anxiety.  I have been working my buns off on my dissertation and every morning I go with the boys to a family in our ward and I work in the basement for a couple hours.  Seth stays and plays in the basement quietly by himself almost the whole time.  But a few days, he has gotten over his mommy attachment enough to go up the stairs and play with Andrew and his other buddy.  Maybe we’ll eventually be able to leave him in nursery (if he ever goes for two consecutive weeks without getting sick …. unlikely).

Branson was a hit.  Seth could only ride on like 2 rides.  He burst into really big tears when he learned he couldn’t ride dumbo.  So, we got to the little kids rides early one day and let him ride them over and over and over.  He was in paradise.  I felt dizzy.

Seth is finally done with teething for a long while, and, just as I predicted, he is back to sleeping well.  He sleeps on the futon all night and wakes up once, maybe like 4-6 am and then will go to sleep if we go in there.  Not bad at all, in my opinion, especially considering he hasn’t been in a crib since like 6 months.

Seth might be developing a (late) comfort object – a soccer sweatshirt.  He is obsessed with wearing anything that has firetrucks or balls and practically throws a fit when we are out of his “ball” socks.  Funny boy.

Seth is a cute, fun boy.  It’s fun to watch him grow up.

Fun things this month:

- BRANSON!!!

- Mardi Gras parade.  And Mardi Gras beads.  It’s all about the bling.

- St Patrick’s day parade with daddy.

-Jambalaya and King Cake for Fat Tuesday.

- A visit to the Botanical Gardens.

- Lots of trips to the park.  In between snow this week and last week, we had some gorgeous 80 degree days!

St Patrick’s Day Parade

I’m working my butt off, so on Saturday’s it’s Daddy day.  The boys were with Katsu from 9-5 today (fun for them, not so much for me … work, work work).  So, today the boys went to the St Patrick’s Day Parade.  The big one in downtown.  (Believe it or not, there is another parade on actual St Patrick’s Day here, but we won’t be able to make it to that one this year).  Of course, a big highlight is the train ride over there.  (They love train rides so much, that last week when they were supposed to go the Science Center, they wanted to take the train to Katsu’s work instead).  And of course, the Pringles Katsu brought for a snack.  Katsu got them there by 10 for a parade that didn’t start till 12, and then – get this – the parade was 3 HOURS!!!  (A little different than the St Charles Mardi Gras one … ha ha ha …).  Seth even took a little nap in the middle.  The boys told me the have tons of fun.  Seth loved the fire trucks the most, of course.  And Andrew loved the balloons, the floats, the fire trucks … it all.  Of course, he loved everything.  Pictures:

Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras is a pretty big deal in St. Louis.  I had no idea.  The festivities start in January with Epiphany Day (if that’s what it’s called) and they have lots of parades and events.  We didn’t get to any of the official parades in St. Louis – a lot of them aren’t very family friendly.  So, I read about a family friendly one in St. Charles and we decided to go.  We love St. Charles and we thought it would be fun.

We got there and parked by the cute old downtown like we usually do.  It was a cold day, but we were going to get lunch and then watch the parade.  But it was in the Frenchtown district.  Which was a bit further away.  Katsu went back for the car and me and the boys kept walking, quite a bit further.  We figured there would be some great restaurants in Frenchtown.  So, we kept walking.  and there was nothing … no people, no businesses … it looked like the time we went to Sault Ste. Marie, but worse.  It was deserted and at this point we were very hungry and tired.  We kept thinking we saw a place to eat – one looked promising until we got close enough to realize that it was a taxidermy place!  Finally, we found an itsy bitsy restaurant that was a bike shop / café and got a bite to eat.

Then, the parade started.  It was definitely for kids, but very small.  Notice in the pictures, there is like no one else there.  It had like 5 floats maybe.  It took like 5 minutes and the kids got lots of beads and candy (almost exclusively twizzlers, which they don’t like).  Then, the long walk back to the car.  but the kids really had fun.  It was an adventure.

For Fat Tuesday, I made some jambalaya.  It was really really good.  We’ll have to make it a tradition – it really felt like a feast.  And ended with a king cake.  The kids were drooling over it.  I don’t know why they left the baby on top and didn’t bake it into the cake, though.

Andrew is 3 years 10 months

Only a couple days late this time.  Another fun and busy month.

As you can tell, Andrew has become thick as theives with Seth this month, getting into so much trouble.  More than I could even tell.  His new favorite is playing with my makeup and painting his face blue (why I have this eye shadow, I am not sure).  I always tell him, “You can’t play with this” and he says, “I’m not playing – I need this.  I am working”.

He LOVES church stuff.  He plays with his board set almost every day.  He makes sure we say prayers every day and wants to have family home evening every night.  He has Katsu tell a Jesus story every night before he goes to bed.  He talks about Jesus all the time and tells people about him – the library, everywhere.  He told me that “Jesus knows everything” and I asked him where he learned that.  He said, “Jesus told me during my prayers”.  I can’t believe how religious he is.

Andrew is really into using time and number words, but he hasn’t quite figured it out.  So cute.

He is finally getting the knack of undressing and dressing himself.  Hooray.  Of course, when he puts things on the wrong way, he refuses to change it around.  The other day, his pants and his underwear were both backwards.  Oh, well.

He still wakes up like every 3 hours unless one of us is sleeping next to him and he wants to hold our hand to go to sleep and sometimes at night, too.  He really wants to sleep by himself all night so he can get stickers and go to Chuck E Cheese, but then he’ll tell us each not, that tonight he’s “not ready yet”.  Sigh …

Another fun month with Andrew.  I can’t believe he is almost 4.  He has an assessment tomorrow through Parents As Teachers.  It will be interesting to see what they have to say.

Fun things this month -

- Play dates with kids in the ward.

- Really fun puppet show with “Bark George Bark” and “Daddy Mountain” at the library.  Andrew loved it.  We watched it with a friend from our Washington University group, who Andrew really likes.  But he wouldn’t sit next to her because he was “too shy” and wanted to be by me.  Don’t know where that came from.

- Getting valentines and candy from the kids at his preschool … a week late, but he still loved them.  I think some are still littering their bedroom/playroom.

- Princess and the Frog at the History museum.  Another big hit – the kids loved it and Andrew kept wanting to get more and more snacks.  Too bad the series will be done for the year.

- Storytime with our Washington University group at the History Museum.  The boys made cowboy costumes.

- Mardi Gras parade in St. Charles.  Post to follow, but let’s say it was an adventure!  Andrew had a lot of fun and then worn his Mardi Gras beads for the next week ALL the time (except during preschool).

- Dr. Seuss two weeks at preschool.  Andrew had so much fun – they dressed up a different thing each day, they made Dr. Seuss hats, ate green eggs and ham, and painted their feet on two different days!  Now, every time we go to the library, he finds lots of new Dr. Seuss books.

- Another filling for Andrew.  Poor boy.  I hope it’s the last one forever … or at least for a long time.  It did NOT go well at all.  He was completely heartbroken by the time they were done.  But he cheered up with a milkshake from McDonalds and new shoes from the mall (he grew 2 full sizes since the last pair … whoops).

- Jambalaya and King Cake for Fat Tuesday.  Andrew was SO excited and couldn’t wait to eat the cake all day and was so excited about the beads and baby Jesus on top.

- A cold visit to the Botanical Gardens.  And finally, lots of visit to the park, which thanks to the new park is CRAWLING with kids.  Lots of kids for Andrew to play with … he always seems to gravitate to the girls.

- St. Patrick’s Day parade with Daddy today!  Andrew LOVED it.  St. Louis is a GREAT place for parades!  I missed it, but he told me that he loved “everything”.  Of course, he says that about everything.  “What was your favorite part?”  “Everything”.  Always.

So exasperated!

I am so exasperated with the boys lately.  I can not believe how much they get into and how many messes they make.  I think they just how busy/tired I am these last few weeks (trying to finish up this stupid PhD) and are pulling out all the stops.

Yesterday, while I was cooking dinner, I heard what I thought was Seth playing with Mardi gras beads, throwing them against something and hearing the clinking sound.  Um … no.  That sound I heard was instead Seth getting into the cat food tupperware (holding pounds and pounds of cat food).  He was getting handfuls and throwing them – EVERYWHERE.  The floor of the closet were we keep it was so covered in food I couldn’t see the carpet.  But not just there – in the dining room, the kitchen, the living room (okay, these are rooms in a relative sense in our apartment but you get the picture).  On the couch, on the window sill.  In the couch.  I think I finally finished vacumming it up this afternoon.

Then, I decided I needed to marinate the tofu for dinner.  This takes all of 5 minutes, tops.  As I go to put the couch cushions back in the couch after the boys have built some sort of sliding playground, and I see crumbs.  And pieces of bread.  Oh, yes – the boys had taken the entire half loaf of bread left and stuff bits in there mouth and then littered the rest all over the floor.

Besides the usual messes of taking all the movies out of the rack, constantly taking my muffin tins and baking sheets all over the house, playing with my makeup, the list never ends.

On Sunday, the boys were playing in their bedroom … a little too quietly.  Andrew had been in time out for trying to choke Seth with a bath robe tie.  Katsu had told him to “think about how Seth could have died” – pretty typical for Katsu and his parenting (ha ha ha).  Seth must have joined him in time-out.  We peek in and they found my cross-stitch box and had started to undo all the skeins.  Sigh … The best part – we asked Andrew what they were doing (before we saw the wreckage) and he said, “Thinking about when Seth is going to die”.  At least he was listening …

Seth is 20 months

Well, technically yesterday.  I can hardly believe it.  I still even this week got a comment about how he is too small to be walking.  Ha ha ha – he’s only been walking for 10 months!  He is a teeny tiny things though. 

So, let’s see … Physically – I don’t think Seth has gained any weight.  He got sick this month – with a 104 degree fever and just totally lethargic for like 3 days.  Poor kiddo.  And of course, it was the one really nice week here where it was like 50-60 every day.  Oh, well.  He is still a little monkey – just all over the place.  He climbs into places I don’t even know how gets there.

He is finally starting to move his one nap later – of course, like 11:30, now.  So, it’s still kind of challenging.

He is pretty handy with utensils now and feeds himself very well with a spoon.  He wolfed down the Jello we gave him today.

He peed in the potty for the first time this month.  But now shows no real interest, so we’ll wait.  He thinks if he presses his finger against the potty it helps him pee.

Emotionally – Seth is really emotionally / tantrummy lately.  He gets very angry and then he throws things or hits things or bites things.  Usually throwing.  Then he’ll get really upset and leave and go to a room and cool down.  But he mostly has tantrums when he is tired or Andrew is bothering him.  The rest of the time, he is very loving and loves to cuddle and check back in with me and give hugs and kisses.  He plays pretty independently – people always comment on it – but wants us in the room.  His favorite is to say “Hand” “Hand” and then wait until I will take his hand and go wherever he wants.

Mentally – Seth is pretty smart, I think.  But it is probably due to wanting to do everything that Andrew can.  He is trying to learn all his letters and numbers, too.  I was so impressed when I thought he knew that we were in Apartment 8 b/c it says it on our door, but I think that was luck.  He can totally do shape shorting completely and knows the names of some of the shapes and maybe some colors, too.  He is starting to count – consistently 1 and 2, but I know he knows most of the names to 10.  He loves puzzles but always wants to do jigsaw puzzles – he likes putting the pieces together, but, of course, he has a little bit of a hard time knowing which piece goes where.

Seth is talking more.  He has a HUGE vocabulary.  I think it is way more than Andrew had at this age.  On the other hand, his speech is still pretty unclear (the kid needs to learn to enunciate and pronounce end syllables) and I still sometimes have no idea what he wants.  I usually eventually figure it out, though.  He is starting to combine words and phrases – I don’t know if I would quite call it a sentence.  I love how he answers questions – When I ask how something was, he will usually say “Good”.  And today he asked for “Jello please”.  Pretty darn cute.  Oh, and the word “Mine” has surfaced loud and clear this month.  He definitely knows that word well.

Seth will repeat phrases for prayers and fold his arms and clearly say “Amen”.  He also loves to sing Primary songs and will even try to sing along to the Wise Men and the Foolish Men.  When we sing “Follow the Prophet” he will go and get the LDS board books.  he likes nursery – as long as Katsu is there the whole time.  Of course, he is only there about half the time because he is sick the rest of the time.

Seth still loves trains and cars.  First thing when he stumbles out of bed, he goes straight to the trains.  “Train track” is like his favorite phrase.  He also likes to make his cars “wreck” which means they are upside down and then he turns them right side up.  He likes to dance and gallop around, especially when he is excited.  He LOVES to read, especially Dora and SkippyJon Jones books.  He loves to do jigsaw puzzles and shuns ones with too few or too large pieces.  He likes TV too much (I finally have a weekly chart with 5 30 min slots with 2 being for our movie night – it is working pretty well).  He loves to play with play dough, but mostly playing with the jars.  He loves to throw balls.  He likes to play pretend with Andrew – wearing a cape and being Super Why – or pretending to go off and fight giants “Giants, giants”.   He likes to turn on faucets whenever I turn my back.  He likes to do play dates.  He loves Japanese characters – An Pan Man and Doraemon – and any American character, really.   He is a really big helper and if he sees me doing a chore, he rushes to help.  He has a good sense of direction and gets upset if I am not going the way he thinks I should be (like when we took a different way to the zoo).

I love his cheesy grin.  They are such cute boys and brothers.

Fun Things this month:

- Setsubun – a Japanese holiday where you throw beans at a goblin.  Seth was terrified whenever Katsu wore the mask, even when he knew that Katsu was underneath.  The whole next day he would go to the back door and say “Monster.  Beans”.

- Watching movies at History Museum.  Also story time.  Seth loves the snacks!  And seeing the replica of the plane, the Spirit of St. Louis.

- Zoo.  Always a treat.  We’ve been 2 or 3 times this month.

- Cahokia Mounds.  Seth was moderately interested.

- Watching any sports with Katsu.  He is especially interested in soccer and must point out soccer balls wherever he sees them.

- Valentine’s Day diner visit and also chocolate.  Seth loved the chocolate and playing with Andrew’s valentines.  Also, the cool octopus balloons that Katsu brought home for them.

- Play dates with kids in the ward.

- A really fun puppet show with two fun books – Bark George Bark and the Daddy Mountain – at the library.  Seth was so excited about it, at dinner he kept trying to tell Katsu “Pupp, pupp, pupp” – it took us a little bit but then he said yes when we asked him how much he enjoyed it.  So cute that he wanted to add to the dinner conversation.

Double Trouble

The kids have been one huge bunch of trouble lately.  Two boys really is more than just two boys stuck together.  Of course, the big ones this last week or so were flushing all their crayons down the toilet and drawing on our coffee table with permanent marker.  And the daily playing in the sink and throwing things in their to get ruined (books, the hair cutting kit, paper, squeezing hair gel out into it).  And drawing with markers on the exercise bike.  And the couch.  And breaking the key off my laptop.  And scooping and throwing toilet water on the floor.  And taking everything out from the pantry and leaving it either in a pile on the floor or putting it in the tupperware with the cat food.  Or stealing all the spoons so they can dance around with them in their mouths (Because Katsu said that only spoons and forks and knives can go in your mouth).  The list just goes on and on and on ….  And that is just this week!  And what I can remember.  Good thing they are cute little rascals.  I am worn out.

Cahokia Mounds

We went to the UNESCO site Cahokia Mounds – it’s the oldest civilization site of Native Americans north of Mexico.  It’s just a state park and it’s not particularly well known, especially outside of St. Louis, although there was a nice article recently in National Geographic.

It was a relatively warmer day between a few big snow storms, enough that the snow had melted mostly and the kids wanted to run around.  We skipped the visitor center, cause we were cheap and we mostly just wanted the kids to kick around.

The kids loved climbing up the mounds and running to the edge.  The mound is pretty tall and had a nice view of St. Louis.  There are lots of little ones around there.  There used to be nice mounds nearby, even in St. Louis, but they’re not there anymore.  We even got to see a Wood-henge.  Katsu was not very impressed.  Not quite as cool as stonehenge.

It was a fun little trip.

Pictures of Andrew

Andrew is 3 years, 9 months

And this post is really late.  Oh, well.  The last couple weeks stunk in terms of weather (as they did everywhere) and we have felt so stir crazy and I’ve just been in general cranky.  Then, Seth started getting sick on Friday with his fever up to the 104s on Sunday when we finally measured it (we were medicating the whole time, of course).  Now, Andrew is getting sick.  He really wanted to go to preschool today to exchange valentines, but then on the way, he threw up all over himself and his seat.  So, we drove him and I planted them in front of Sesame Street so I could try to clean out the car and car seat.  And he is sobbing because he really wanted to go to preschool.  Sigh … I swear, he missed half of preschool last month and will miss half of it this month, which is so frustrating because it’s so expensive.   And now the weather is finally nicer and we can’t go outside because everyone is sick.  I am SOOO stir crazy.  And it really stinks that we still don’t have any good friends and they have had a total of like 3 play dates since we moved here … maybe.

Back to Andrew … not much seems different.  He is obsessed with his super powers and being “Super Why” and how all the super whys are going to move to our planet and live with us.  He wants to fly and save people all the time.  He wears all of his pretend clothes – his cape and mask and sunglasses and hats and doctor stethoscope and holding all his tools and then dances around to his Dora CD.  Pretty cute.  He said a spontaneous prayer this month – God, please kill all the bad people, Amen.

He loves preschool and sunbeams.  He loves playing with his flannel boards and wants to show it to all his classmates at Primary.  He loves singing songs and sings the ones he learns at preschool and church.  He enjoys painting and especially cutting and gluing.  He is learning his letters and knows at least half and can occasionally sounds out words if prompted.

Otherwise, the same old Andrew.   He knows what he wants.  when I asked if he wanted to go on a date with Daddy and go ice skating, he said no, he wanted to go to the Chinese buffet together.  That is what they do for dates.  Ha ha ha.  Well, glad we got that covered.

Fun things this month.

- Ice festival at the loop – Andrew wanted to see everything and get the ice cubes with chocolate inside at each place.

- Sledding on art hill.  Andrew loved it!  He could have done it all day.  He was so tired afterwards (or so we thought), he couldn’t even walk.  Turns out he started running a fever and got sick that day.  Oh, well (side note – we were all healthy for about 2 or 3 weeks there until last weekend … otherwise, someone has been sick in the household since Miami – yes since late September).

- Watching Ratatouille at the History Museum.  Andrew loved the snacks but was terrified of the movie even though he had seen it before.  He made us leave half way through.

- Special Elephant and Piggie show at the library.  Andrew loved it!

- Setsubun – a Japanese holiday.  Andrew LOVED throwing beans at the demon (Katsu with a mask).

- Donuts with Dad – Andrew was so happy that Katsu came and had a great time!

- Playing at the indoor playground at a couple malls and even McDonalds – we have been so stir crazy.

- More cavities and more fillings – okay, so that wasn’t so fun, but necessary I suppose.  Andrew was scared and I had to drag him to the car and drag him inside, but he did really really well and was actually happy when it was done!

- Trip to the zoo.

- Visit to Cahokia mounds (a Unesco site).  Andrew loved climbing up, worried us that he was going to jump off, and liked to imagine the indians that lived there.

- Celebrating Chinese New Years at a friends house.  Andrew loves Chinese food, so he loved this!!!

- Watching the Super Bowl.  Andrew was excited all week about all the snacks we got for Katsu, but he was not as excited actually watching football.

- Lunch at a diner with the family for Valentine’s Day.  Andrew though the milkshake he got was really great!