Mary Being Mary

Here is just one of the many events in the upbringing of a second child that may contribute to these children being, in general, more laid back than their older siblings. As a second child, if your mom puts you on top of a basket of clean laundry in order to have enough hands to get everything and everyone up from the basement in one trip, you grin and enjoy the ride on your magic carpet, thinking to yourself how nice it is not to have to walk up all those stairs like your older sister. And if your mom thinks you look so content on your cloud of Bounty-softness that she might be able to sneak a shower into her schedule, you of course lodge your official complaint about the indignity of your situation with a few token squawks and swings into the air, but ultimately you wisely decide that 20 minutes in a laundry basket in the warm bathroom beyond the reach of your sister and her poke-poke-poking with your mom talking to you all the while really isn't the worst idea you can come up with, and you sleep comfortably.



And a brief video of Mary just being awake:

Mary's 4-Week Checkup (and more headbands)

Mary got another thumbs-up at her four-week checkup yesterday. She is 10 pounds 5 ounces and 22 inches long (2 pounds and 2 inches in 4 weeks)! She also slept from 11 to 3 and is now still sleeping at 6:30 (although of course I am up with Catherine) but getting up just once with Mary is pretty good.

Here are some more pictures of Catherine playing with headbands - it is one of her favorite activities right now.




And I know you all can't get enough pictures of her curls:


Catherine likes to pick out her own clothes now; here is the typical result:

Picnics & Playgrounds & Beaches, Oh My!

Our delightful weather continued throughout the weekend and since I have less than two weeks left as a full-time mama we are taking advantage - we spent every afternoon at a park or beach!

First, since you never see Mary in those pictures, here are some recent ones. She is starting to have more alert spells and making lots of faces at us while she observes - I think we've seen enough smiles to say that Mary does not have Catherine's dimples. Tomorrow we go to the pediatrician for her four-week checkup, so we'll see how much she has grown; I can definitely see and feel a difference from two weeks ago!




Also here are some random Catherine antics. Even though she won't leave headbands on for the practical purpose of keeping her hair out of her face during the day, she does like to play with them.




She also loves playing with the alphabet letters on the fridge (sometimes she'll sit down in front of it and point to the floor next to her saying "sit sit" until one of us sits down and says the letters with her). Right now she is best at identifying the letters by a word that starts with that letter. Her favorites are "D" for Daddy, "M" for Mama and Mary, and "R" for Bobbert. We recently also added "C" for Catherine, "B" for boat and "G" for Grandpa.



On Saturday we went to the church picnic on a nice lake and the weather was perfect. Catherine liked throwing small rocks into the lake and carrying chairs around the lawn with her friend Morgan, int erupting the bocce ball game, chasing the ducks back into the lake every time they ventured onto the shore, and eating hot dog buns and watermelon.






We made it to the beach twice today: this morning for church and this evening before dinner. Catherine loves the beach (but dislikes having sand on her hands when she is done playing).





I am starting to think Catherine either has a really good memory or an uncanny sense of direction. We picked up Morgan's dad at their house to go down to the picnic with us on Saturday, and all I told Catherine when we got in the car was that we were going to a picnic (not that we were stopping at Morgan's on the way). When we pulled up to Morgan's house, which Catherine has only been to once several months ago, I said "Catherine, where are we?" (fully expecting a blank stare) and she said "Morgan!" - I think my mouth actually dropped open. The picnic was on the same grounds as the church, at the lake's beach a bit beyond the building where we actually hold church. This morning when we were walking up to the church building Catherine kept pointing down the road saying "Beach! Beach!" (and the beach is not in sight until you go a ways down that road and around a bend). All I know is that if it is a good sense of direction, she didn't get it from me.

Catherine's Basement

We have had fantastic late-summer weather here the last couple days - sunny and mid-seventies - so we have been spending a lot of time outside. Tuesday we spent the afternoon at Catherine's friend Tanner's house in our neighborhood, playing in his little baby pool and yard. Catherine didn't actually get in the pool, but she enjoyed sitting on a chair at the edge putting her feet in and moving cupfulls of water from the pool to various places around the deck and yard. She also of course enjoyed a poolside snack.


Tanner has an awesome playhouse and sandbox in the yard as well; Catherine quickly tried to establish herself as proprietor of the whole estate, but the kids ended up sharing pretty well.


Mary turned 4 weeks yesterday! She is definitely growing quickly - her "newborn" size outfits are already fading to the back of the closet. She is starting to have an occasional fussy episode in the evenings, but is mostly very calm and accommodating still. We were out running errands for about three hours yesterday morning and she slept the whole time!

Of course, Mary being four weeks means I only have two more weeks until I go back to work. Catherine is going to be spending the afternoons with babysitters at the house, so we have been setting up the basement with new and awesome toys in the hope that she will spend her time down there willingly. Grandma's visit helped - she brought both a giant stuffed reindeer that lives on the floor and sustains dozens of Catherine-flops each time we're down there, as well as this card table that transforms into a play house thanks to the cover Grandma sewed. Catherine is really into hiding and crawling in small spaces right now, so this is perfect.



We also got Catherine a new chair so she has one upstairs and one downstairs - she likes the addition of the ottoman with this one, and also that it has flowers all over it.

The "cheese" face:

And just reading:



Yesterday we spent the afternoon at the park - I am again lacking in pictures, but not because I forgot my camera. When it's just me, Catherine, and Mary, I have Mary in the baby wrap but keeping an eye on Catherine can still be difficult, especially when there are older, ill-behaved kids pushing each other and crashing around all the playground equipment not looking out for smaller children. Catherine was also playing with her friend Morgan, who is three and capable of slightly more advanced feats on the slides and climbing equipment, so I have to keep a hand on stand-by to catch Catherine when she inevitably tries to immitate the things Morgan does. In short, we had a good time but no extra hands for a camera!

Here is a quick video of what we are doing right now: Catherine giving Mary hugs and kisses, like always!

Another Lovely Weekend

While Mary still spends a lot of time just lying around, she is learning to speak up a little bit when she is really hungry or Catherine is annoying her. Since it takes at least two hands to keep up with Catherine most of the time, Mary usually spends a large chunk of every day in the baby wrap. She enjoys this, but it also means I don't take very many pictures of her, so here is my view of her in the wrap:


Lately when I put Mary down for some tummy time, she just gets comfortable and falls asleep. She would much rather sleep on her stomach than her back.


Catherine has figured out that the camera takes pictures (she can even say "pictures") and since she loves to watch videos of herself and look at pictures on the camera and computer she is starting to become a little more cooperative with the camera. When I get out the camera and tell her to "say cheese" this is the face she makes:


This morning I wanted to take a picture of this hat (she put it on herself) and when she saw me get the camera out she immediately plopped down on the floor and sat perfectly still looking at me. I told her to "say cheese" and she said "applejuice!" - it made for a much better smile than her "cheese" face:


At church on the beach yesterday the tide was out so Catherine found this awesome rock to sit on. She loves the beach - getting her to leave without a fit can be a challenge, but usually if we can get her to start saying bye-bye to things we can stave off a meltdown. Of course, it means we have to listen to "bye-bye water, bye-bye rock, bye-bye bird, bye-bye car, bye-bye swing, bye-bye sand, bye-bye beach, bye-bye boat, bye-bye airplane" over and over again all the way home!


After church yesterday Michael was gone most of the afternoon so Catherine, Mary and I walked to the park and spent a good couple hours swinging and sliding. I forgot to take my camera with me, so in the spirit of Catherine and Mary's Great Uncle Greg, here are some slightly fuzzy camera phone pictures to document the event:


Every time Catherine went down the slide her hair would get all staticy and stick straight out:



Also, here is a postscript to my account of Mary's first bath. I totally forgot that the uncles would appreciate knowing that not only did Mary poop in her first bath, she also pooped in the towel immediately after her first bath before I got a diaper on her.

Bye Bye Dampas

After our busy day on the island on Wednesday, we spent our last day with Grandma and Grandpa on Thursday mostly relaxing. We went to lunch at Nick & Athena's so Catherine and Grandma could get pancakes, and then Grandma took Catherine on a little shopping spree (Catherine is skipping over the "24 months" size - she is busting out of all her 18 months clothes and now her wardrobe is mostly 2T and 3T). Catherine absolutely loves shopping, and she convinced Grandma to pick up all sorts of things for her. She only threw a medium-sized fit when it was time to leave the store.

When we got home Grandma took out all her new clothes and hung them around her room, which Catherine totally loved. She spent at least an hour examining all the clothes and moving them around and showing them to us and telling us how soft they are.



Catherine and Grandma also spent a lot of time reading, working on their ABCs, and learning colors. Catherine can pick out the orange and blue crayons without fail, although the rest of them are hit and miss still. She loves singing the ABC song (she gets the first three letters right and the rest are a bit sketchy):



And she can pick out some letters in her alphabet books:



Grandma and Grandpa had to leave Friday morning, and although we said "bye-bye" to them about 50 times (at least 30 of those were long after they pulled out of the driveway) Catherine still said "Dampa?" every time she heard Michael coming up the stairs all day yesterday. I guess it seems to her that grandparents just sort of materialize out of the basement once in a while. However, Grandpa's influence lives on in Catherine's reading posture:



We had a nice day yesterday distracting Catherine from her lost playmates. We went to the beach where Catherine destroyed all my sand towers, and we picked over the garden for a while. I think my cucumber plants are about spent, but we still have hundreds of grape and sunshine tomatoes ripening, lots of green beans, and some squash and eggplants. The raspberries are also getting a second crop that will be ripe in a couple weeks (these are Catherine's favorites).


Another undeniable sign that Catherine is not the baby in the house any more: for the last couple weeks she has been sleeping in her crib with one rail taken off (replaced by a shorter safety rail just so she doesn't roll out) so she can get out of bed by herself in the mornings. I was hoping it would work so that when she wakes up in the morning and I am feeding Mary or something she would get out of bed and entertain herself for a while. She hasn't really gotten the "entertain yourself" part figured out, but since she can get out of bed by herself instead of being trapped in her crib she at least usually wakes up happier than before. Last night we had a giant thunderstorm, and it was the first time Catherine has gotten out of bed before morning. I was going to let her come into our bed for a while, but she was actually happier when I put her back in hers. She did get up one other time before going back to sleep (she just ran into our room and said "Hi Daddy!") but when I took her back to her bed she stayed and fell asleep without a problem. Next on the big girl agenda: potty training.

Nantucket

You may have already read some bits about our day on Nantucket yesterday from Grandpa's blog, but here's the recap from Catherine's perspective...

The ferry ride was the best. Catherine really liked the wind blowing her hair around (although she had to take off her pink hat for the ride so we wouldn't lose it) and loved the bubbles that the boat made in the water. She also had a really good time pointing out all the birds and boats we passed in the water.



After about half an hour of all this excitement Catherine started to get very sleepy (she woke up at five) so we transferred Mary from the carrier to Grandma and Catherine climbed up in my lap and fell asleep. Of course, shortly after that Mary was hungry so we transferred Mary to Grandpa and slid Catherine from my lap to Grandma's lap and then Mary came back to me for a snack. Oh the fun of having two children that require being in your lap at the same time!



We spent most of the day just wandering around the harbor looking at the boats and then meandering about the town. Catherine pointed out and named pretty much everything she has a word for, including cars, bikes, birds, shoes, Mama, Mary, Dampas, trees, trucks, babies, dogs, bowls, buses, cats, sail boats, airplanes, water, swings, bubbles, beach, tables, etc. She was a lovely tour guide.

We met a friend of mine from Pennsylvania for lunch (she and her family were vacationing on the island this week). She has a three-month-old son, and Catherine insisted on calling him "Bobbert" even though we told her repeatedly his name is Cooper. She did repeat "Cooper" with us, but still called him Bobbert, after her favorite baby (our neighbor Robert).

The ferry ride home was a bit rough, and although I don't think Catherine enjoyed it as much as Grandpa, she didn't seem to mind too much. We were going to meet Daddy for dinner when we got off the ferry but since both babies were so well behaved throughout such a long day we decided to quit while we were ahead and went home and ordered pizza instead. It was a good call, because Catherine had a bit of a meltdown during bathtime while we were waiting for the pizza. However a 10-hour night's sleep and she is good as new this morning. Grandma just told her we are going to get pancakes for lunch, so now she is running around the house saying "pancake! pancake!" (they might be her favorite food right now) so I have to go get kids in the car. Everyone should have pancakes for lunch today.

A Day of Firsts

After some thunderstorms last night and this morning, it turned out to be a nice, although cool and breezy, afternoon so we put on sweatshirts and went to the beach! Mary slept through her first trip to the beach (just like Catherine did) but Catherine thoroughly enjoyed herself like always.

This is really a picture of Mary - she is in the baby wrap under my sweater.


Mary's cord stump finished healing up yesterday so today she got her first real bath. It was rather cool in the house so she was not too excited about being naked at first, but by the end I think she was a bath-time fan.


It's great to have children still in the phase of thinking chores are fun. Catherine loves dusting and cleaning, and today she helped Grandma do dishes for the first time - she was quite pleased.



You can see how chilly it was today - the middle of August and we had Mary bundled up in a quilt and hat so she could sleep (it was about 65 and a bit windy).


Tomorrow we are taking the ferry over to Nantucket for the day - Mary's first time on a boat and first trip to the island (Catherine's second). I'm pretty sure Catherine, Grandma, and Grandpa are just going to wander around the harbor all day saying "Boat! Boat!" in a happy sailboat-induced stupor. :)

The Return of the Dampas

I guess after the grandparents visited a few weeks ago Catherine decided that anyone who falls under the category of "Grandma" or "Grandpa" can forego the customary inspection period and be automatically accepted as playmates, because when my parents arrived yesterday evening it took Catherine about 2.5 seconds to settle down on the couch between them and start reading books, and about another 5 seconds for Grandpa to acquire the name "Dampa". Actually I think "Grandma" and "Grandpa" sound too similar for Catherine to distinguish right now, because she is using "Dampa" for both.

Today Catherine spent a lot of time reading all the new books Grandma brought for her. She especially likes "The Cat in the Hat" because it was accompanied by a large stuffed Cat in the Hat, which she has been carrying around all day. Catherine also took Daddy and Grandpa to her Monday play group (Grandpa reported only that it was "loud"), and between rain showers Catherine and Grandma picked veggies from the garden for dinner and spent a lot of time playing in the rocks we put in her sand box in lieu of sand (it's not mean - she likes rocks better).

Catherine has taken to sitting in her chair with her legs crossed like she sees Daddy doing. In this particular picture she is imitating Grandpa.


Yesterday afternoon we went to a little outdoor concert that Catherine really enjoyed. She liked chasing around a small dog in the audience, clapping at the end of each song, playing in the leaves and dirt, and making Daddy chase her all over the place. She of course also liked eating the treats at the end of the show.




Mary still sleeps sleeps sleeps, although she tends to have a decent period of alert time in the morning and evening, so we get to see her eyes once in a while.



Catherine is really into putting Mary's clothes on over her head:


And once in a while she decides if Mary gets to lay on me she should be able to as well:

Mama Catherine

If ever there was a "Mommy Gene", Catherine has it. She now not only feeds her baby dolls with the bottle, tries to change their diapers and clothes, pushes them in the baby swing, buckles them into the car seat, and reads to them, she has also started trying to feed them "like Mama" feeds Mary (using the nursing cover and everything) and teaching them how to walk.





This is just a handful of the books Catherine reads each day. She has been pretty much ignoring the rest of her toys for the last week or so and really focusing on books books books. Go Dog Go is now at the top of the list.


Here's a good picture of Catherine's curls (they're best not long after she gets out of the bath; the top flattens out a lot after she sleeps on it):


Sorry there's no pictures of Mary - I haven't been taking many because mostly she just sleeps and I think I already have a hundred pictures of Sleeping Mary!