Under the Weather, but Still have a Dance in Us

We had a great week for mail. We received two suprise packages (Mom, your second one has not arrived yet.) The first was a Gigi suprise. Since we had so much luggage with us at Christmas, my mom is sending the boys Christmas presants a little at a time throughout the year. I think it will be a great way to extend the play value of the Christmas gifts. We are just really looking forward to the ball pit.

The second gift is featured in this video. Aunt Maggie found this treasure and thought the boys would like it. As you can see, it's a hit. Daniel is bouncing off the walls with joy (no, he has not removed any of the arms or legs yet), and Christopher is learning it's dance. The funniest part is that Christopher can't decide if he really likes it, or if he is scared of it. They both love music. I love that Christopher actually has a routine for the song. That kick, stomp, stomp, stomp is what he does everytime the monkey starts his song.

Christopher and I had back to back urgent care appointments today. We have both been feeling sick for most of the week. Thankfully I decided to get us in because we both left on antibiotics. I'm hoping that this week we will all be feeling better.

Self-Help Skills

A few weeks ago the boys got their assessments from school. I was thrilled to read all about the skills and accomplishments that they had at school. I'm the type of person who really likes this sort of thing. It's ok if you need to groan. One of the things Daniel needs to work on is self-help skills. Which means that his parents need to work on teaching him self-help skills. Now, I tend to take feedback like this well, but very seriously. I've really been thinking about what things we should be making Daniel do for himself that we tend to do for him, and I've had a really difficult time getting past the issue of potty training which is more or less stalled for the moment.

This week the idea of getting dressed and undressed was brought to my attention by more than one source. It sounded like a great thing to start working on, so me being of the complete rational sort, decided to implement our new routine on Wednesday morning before we were all supposed to be ready to go at 7:15 am. It resulted in no less than 15 minutes of Daniel and I in his bathroom with him wailing, "No Mommy, you do it." and throwing his body around like a limp noodle. That combined with Matt's looks of, "Why would you decide that now is the time to do this?" left me feeling a little discouraged. If you want to know why I chose that time, it's because I'm a big beliver of, "There is no time like the present."

I've stuck with this whole undressing and dressing thing since Wednesday morning, and it has not been easy. Daniel is very dramatic and, as Aunt Kelly so cleverly observed, slow to warm up, but this evening it was wonderful to see him put on his footie pajamas almost completely by himself. The best part was the sense of pride I could see in his face when he finished zipping them up. The worst part was the 20 minutes or more it took him to get undressed. Somehow I had to agree to play some flush the toilet game before he would get himself undressed. So when he got his pj's on and asked to play the flush the toilet game which I had forgotten about by the time the zipping was done, I made him go get the toilet brush and I got the Comet and we flushed and cleaned two toilets together. Who knew that lifting and lowering the lid, holding the toilet brush container, and flushing could make a kid so happy? And because I was on a roll, I made a game out of putting my laundry in the chute, too. Give this kid a job, and he is happy.

We will see how this experiment with dressing and undressing goes. I'm thinking it won't be too long before he masters it, but if you have any tips for shirts, I'm all ears.

Can you get me higher?

Christopher's Mission in Life: Getting Higher

It's a Pillow. It's a Pet. It's a Pillow Pet.

A Panda Pillow Pet.

"Umm Dad, you are going to need to do that winding again. I think it was a little twisted on the second round. I'll just get on the ladder to make sure everything is ok over there."

Christopher was well prepared for Penguin Awareness Day at school today. Note the penguin on his overalls and the penguin pillow pet.

Big Cheese was actually on top of the table the first time I caught him weaseling into this spot. I wasn't even out of the room. He is speedy.

Daniel wanted a picture, too. Thankfully, he decided that it was ok for him to stay in his chair instead of getting on the table, too.

"A New Table and Chairs"

It is so much fun to have two boys that love playing with each other. Fun and really scary, well for Christopher's sake anyway. He must have gotten bumped around a bit more than I thought over the past year because recently he has started crying when Daniel even touches anything that he is playing with. I'm not talking about small things either, he could be touching the other side of the table and Christopher would cry. The job of referee is a bit more challenging since he learned that defense mechanism. The only time Christopher stops moving is to eat or sleep. I just discovered today that he actually has seven teeth instead of six. A molar snuck in without me catching it. I was waiting to two more on the bottom, but leave it to Christopher to sprout an unexpected upper molar. Maybe there is a reason for the extra sleepiness and fussiness in the past few weeks.

You will also notice the small bit in the video on our new table. We have been talking about getting a new kitchen table since we moved here. Recently the topic was dominating our daily mealtime conversation. The table we had is a lovely table, but it was just on loan until we found one we liked. It only took a year an a half. Daniel, our little engineer, was a fantastic assistant on chair assembly. He really enjoys having jobs, and his chair job was to line up the legs with the holes. Matt decided that delivery and assembly were something we could handle, he did however decide to spring for the protection plan - is that indicative of our strenghts? I love it when he volunteers me to attach 66 bolts with an Allen wrench the size of my pinky. I guess it shows confidence.

I look forward to many many great dinners at this table over the years! I'm actually blogging right from the table instead of the bar where I do most of my computing. We are total 'kids at Christmas' over this purchase. Reading the paper this morning was like reading the paper for the first time, and we can't stop talking about it. I guess all the shopping and debating paid off! As I'm sitting here gazing into our beautiful snow covered backyard enjoying our table, I noticed the next project. The chandalier.

Happy Birthday Christopher!

Christopher checking out the cupcake.

The ever present pointy finger.

What should I do next?

I'm going in!

All done!

Daniel was pretty excited too!

Happy Birthday Christopher!



Let me at it Mom!

Sorry about the order here. I'm struggling with moving things around here. Thanks to Peggy for the beautiful pictures. There are more on Facebook.

Apologies

I've been quite lazy about posting these days. My Mom has a great post here about our Christmas visit to Sugar Land and Baton Rouge. She has lots of pictures, too.

Now that we are past the wild December with two birthdays and Christmas and Matt working insane hours, hoepfully I will get back in the blogging spirit again. Luckily I've had a bit more energy since Christopher was weaned. I didn't really think about it, but I've been supporting more than one life for the better part of the last three years. No wonder I couldn't stay up past 9:30 pm! These days I see 11 pm regularly.

Life around the Lee house is really busy. Daniel's favorite activities are jumping, jumping on Mommy, and jumping on Daddy. Christopher can't eat enough, and is very much into climbing on everything he can climb on. I'm thinking of redecorating the family room in a jungle gym motif with a ball pit accent. I also find myself continually amazed at the things they say. Christopher because of all the words he is picking up. His latest is poop. He points at his diaper and says, "poop." He will probably start using the potty before his big brother. Daniel because of the things he remembers and the new ideas coming out of his head all the time. The toddler need to control and create order is overwhelming at times. One of the cutest things he does is share his food with Christopher. We have made a point that the things Christopher eats need to be small, so Daniel regularly pinches off tiny crumbs of whatever he is eating and asks if he can put them on Christopher's tray. It's very sweet.

Matt and I celebrated out 6th anniversary yesterday. I can't believe that's it's been six years already. Part of me feels like we just got married. Matt took me out for a romantic evening out at the Wisconsin hockey game ;) Luckily we were in the box with some good friends. Dan and Peggy even decided to show up. All kidding aside, we had a great time, and Matt suprised me with a fancy dinner beforehand at the Kellner Club which is a fancy dinner spot inside the Kohl Center.

Must get back to dishes and lunches for the boys. I look forward to sitting down with a glass of wine and my bookclub book later this evening.