Teething

Anna has her first tooth! She's been super cranky for over a week. I thought she was teething, but it just seemed to be taking forever. On Wednesday night her nose started to run like a faucet and on Thursday morning, there was a tiny little bottom front tooth poking through. It's not there in this picture. I just thought the picture was cute. Lately, she won't open her mouth for anything. You can hardly get a spoon full of mushy Gerber fruit into her. And there's no way she'll open wide for a good look at the offending tooth and raw gums. I tried to rub her down with orajel and I'm fairly certain her lips are now numb but I doubt anything reached her gums.

Annoying Toddler Questions

William has officially reached the age of the annoying toddler questions. For him, it is not the ceaseless repetition of the word "why" as I remember from interaction with other children. At this point, he doesn't seem to have any grasp of the word "why." Instead, his question is completely related to his relationship with his sister. The question I hear far too often in an average day is "what does Anna want?" Generally, this question is asked when Anna is struggling with all her might to get to a toy William has left just out of her reach. When William poses the question the first time, I generally pick the obvious answer as the one to give. "She wants your insert toy name here." Unfortunately, this has no effect on him. Instead, he responds to my answer by asking again, with identical inflection, "what does Anna want." So, I look harder. What answer am I not giving that would satisfy this child? I haven't found it yet. We spend what seems like hours every day with William demanding to know what Anna wants and me incapable of determining what it might be. Sometimes, for variety, William throws in the phrase "to see" at the end. "What does Anna want to see?" Invariably, I tell him that she wants to see something related to him. She wants to see him eat. She wants to see him play. She wants to see him take a stinkin' nap, darn it!!!!! He doesn't accept these answers any more readily. So, I guess we've entered a stage where William is realizing that Mommy doesn't know all the things he wants to know. Perhaps if I could just figure out what Anna really and truly wants as she's reaching for William's toys, we would all be happier here at home.

I'm a VERY lucky man

I took William and Anna to dinner last night while Kris was at orchestra. We sat across from two old couples who just adored Anna. They asked "Daddy, do you have a shotgun? Cuz you're gonna need one!" They were also impressed with how good William was... eating his pasta; not to mention all my broccoli and carrots. When they left, one of them said, "You are a verly lucky man." I thought on that for a while and have to agree completely. I have the best two kids and wife one could hope for.

Where do you get a shotgun anyway? Looking at this picture, I'm seriously considering it...

Do you like cars?

Only someone who really, really likes cars would wear this shirt. It was our gift to William in honor of "Gone Digital" day... Once I went to Utah and forgot to pack any shirts. I ended up wearing loud hawaiian shirts every day because that's all Dad had in his closet.

Monkey Queen

I've had a digital camcorder for close to a year now and last week was the first time I extracted any video onto my computer. This frame came from some video I took in Israel at the Monkey Forest. What sort of psychological damage did these monkeys do to Anna in her developmental stages?

Kitchen Patrol

We've started William early on his kitchen duties. He's learning how to rinse the dishes for me. It's just too bad they don't make shirts long enough to cover the bellies of tall kids like him.

Really Starting Solids

Anna started rice cereal this week and really seemed to enjoy it. She gets it all over herself, in true baby fashion, but manages to swallow a lot of it. I gave her squash yesterday and she made quite a mess.

It's been a sickly month for our little family. As I mentioned in the entry right before Christmas, William got a cold at that time. Well, since then he and Daddy and Anna have all had ear infections, Daddy's had a sinus infection, and William, Anna and I have had eye infections - twice. We all got through them once only to have a relapse. Anna has felt pretty miserable off and on. So has William, with a constant stream of snot dangling from his nose and chapping his lips and cheeks. This has made it hard to keep up on this blog. Both the kids aren't sleeping well which means Mommy isn't sleeping well. And William doesn't nap in the daytime anymore, so I don't get any breaks from him to work on the computer or my scrapbook or anything I really want to do.

In spite of all that misery, we have managed to have some good fun lately. William and Anna are both making tons of progress with development and we're very proud. Anna has learned to roll over! She first developed this skill about a week and a half ago. I took some photos of the event...But William kept getting in the way.


She's a real champ at it now and can get herself into new and exciting places.


William has developed a love of singing and often tells me that there is a song in his mouth. He then opens his mouth and points inside. This is especially fun at mealtime. Some of his favorite songs are the ABC's, the Wheels on the Bus, and the Snowman song. He seems to be learning a lot from his nursery song leader and every time we listen to the Primary Songs CD, he surprises me by singing along with new ones. He absolutely adores Anna. If she naps while he and I are awake, he asks me every five minutes "Is Anna awake?" If I say yes he says "want to go see she" (his pronouns aren't quite straight) and runs to whichever room she's in to stand over her and smile and laugh (and hit her in a way he means as hi). He loves to shake her in her bouncy seat and push her in her swing so hard that it scares me but he ignores my demands that he stop because she laughs at it. He continues to love to watch TV, with his first words every day being "want to watch a show." We're trying to limit our TV time, but when I'm tired I don't do so well with it.

Starting Solids

Last Monday, Anna got really cranky in the afternoon. I spent a few hours just holding her and watching TV with her and William, since she would cry if I put her down. This was unusual. She’s usually a very good-natured kind of baby spending hours laying on the floor or sitting in her bouncy seat cooing and gurgling and drooling all over any toys within her reach. She finally fell asleep and I was able to get dinner on.

Some time after she woke up and before I bathed her, she pooped. I went to give her a bath after getting William to bed (who has suddenly and inexplicably decided that baths are miserable and awful experiences—this after 2 years of begging me to bathe him several times a day!). When I removed Anna’s diaper I found it full of baby pooh and, right in the middle, a round, plump, and perfectly intact raisin. This struck me as odd considering that Anna is 5 months old and hasn’t been given the go-ahead for solids yet, and even if she had, I wouldn’t be starting the toothless baby on whole raisins. Her 2½-year-old brother, on the other hand, loves raisins and eats them whenever he can. In fact, he is often given baggies of raisins and animal crackers as a breakfast-time treat to keep him occupied while I shower. Well, I’m guessing he decided to share his raisins with his adorable little sister one morning and that would explain the discomfort that led Anna to cry for hours and then pass a solid raisin in her pooh. My first response to this discovery was to laugh. Her first solid food – a raisin stuffed into her mouth by her well-meaning big brother. Then, another thought crossed my mind, that of ‘choking-hazard.’ I could imagine the outcome of the raisin-sharing being a little different. What if she hadn’t managed to swallow the offering? What if she had choked?

I thank the busy guardian angels of my little girl for pushing the raisin down the right tube. I hadn’t realized that the biggest threat to the survival of a baby would be her older siblings. But I should have guessed. After all, there were six kids in my family. I’ve seen what kids do to each other.

Ear infection?!? Who me?!?

When I was a baby my mom would take me to the doctor and he'd ask if I'd been upset/screaming/crying a lot. She'd say no, and he'd say, "That's wierd, he has an ear infection, sore throat, etc. "

So last week I caught the cough that William had. And then my right ear started hurting. I came to the most plausible conclusion - it was my headphone earbud irritating it. I'd been listening to iTunes radio while working from home, watching episodes of 24 on the computer, and playing computer games I got for Christmas. Boy was I wrong! Last night I heard some liquid in the ear, and within two hours I was crying in intense pain. The pressure was amazing! I lost hearing, and the constant ringing kept buzzing in my ear.

Kristin took me to the ER, and after waiting for hours the doctor looked in my bad ear and said, "Wow! That's incredible!" Probably the last thing you want to hear a doctor say when he looks in your bad hear. He told me it was infected and the eardrum would probably burst - nothing he could do about it. I didn't ask if it could just be an irritating earbud. He prescribed penicillin (can someone send me the grilled-cheese sandwich?), ear drops to numb the drum, and Vicadin (hope I don't get addicted). Loaded up with drugs I was able to sleep, and I am feeling much better today. That Vicadin makes you feel funny...

Before the ER, while I paced the floor in pain, I thought, "Why me?" I decided it must be my RUDE,RUDE,RUDE teasing. I thought, "What if I die from head explosion and the last blog entry I wrote ripped on Chad?" So I'm apologizing to Mom for calling her an "Old Bitty" - not that I ever did, but just in case. And I'm sorry Bro for the jab at your GRE. And I'm sorry for the countless other low blows I've dished out in the past. Now hopefully my head won't go KaBoom!!

What happened to that "extra gift"?

We received an "extra gift" for Christmas thanks to Chad and Angie's contest. (and my good guessing :) Well this is what we received:















And what we did with it:
















It was yummy! Thanks Chad and Angie!

Christmas Pictures

The Kids in their Christmas Finery.

Anna in the car

Anna's Christmas Outfit

Thank you, Grammy, for such a cute little outfit. It's really soft, too!

Before Christmas

‘Twas two days before Christmas and in every room
William’s snot rags were dirty, the poor boy filled with gloom.

He’d come down with a cold only two days before
And I bet you can guess what I’ll ask Santa for:

For my son to get healthy, to sleep through the night,
For his cries, not for sadness, but filled with delight.

Every apple juice bottle was filled up with care
In hopes the mixed meds would bring relief there.

At last he is sleeping while the MoTab Choir sings
I’m enjoying the peace that his silent rest brings.

Little Anna is fussy for she too wants to sleep
So I guess I'll shop later for this year's Christmas Feast.

My Talented Wife

Kristin has been busy decorating our house with Christmas cheer. She even finished sewing her Christmas mantle cover. It was a complicated process and she is very proud of it. I tease her because it was a 2-year project, but it really did turn out nice. I had to show off her handywork on the blog. Here's the cover along with our olive wood nativity scene carved by none other than Omar!

On a completely different subject... Did you know they had man eating sharks in Bethlehem? I was in the process of setting up a shark-eating-baby scene when I dropped the shark and broke his tail :( I guess that's what you get for blaspheming.

Oscar the Pest

William is napping. This is not an everyday thing anymore and rarely goes off without a long, drawn-out struggle when it does happen, so I am really enjoying this moment of peace. Anna started grumbling at 11:30, so, when feeding her left her still grumbly, I stuck her in her play pen wrapped in warm blankets and she’s been sleeping off and on ever since. William and I ate lunch together and played. We built his Wee Waffle Village set that I got at Goodwill. He brought the box to me and told me he NEEDED it. I decided it looked like fun and for $4.99 it didn’t even matter if some of the pieces were missing from the taped-up original box. Most of them were in there (all but some of the people and farm animals and the tractor) and we’ve had a ton of fun playing with it.
After playing with it for a bit, we went to William’s bed to read the latest library books. He dragged the library book bag to his room – it was too heavy for him to lift with six hard-cover kid’s books inside. We read three of them and then he let me cover him up. He has been whining for me and banging his stuffed animals on the wall so that their hard eyes make clicking noises, but he isn’t very loud yet, so I’ll give him a chance to fall asleep.


Oscar has gone through some sort of metamorphosis. After nearly 5 years with me, his personality has completely changed. Up until our trip to Utah for Thanksgiving, he was a solitary thing, rarely out of his cage and hardly interested in anything aside from his own reflection. Suddenly, he’s become…well, like all the other birds we’ve had growing up. I thought at first that perhaps he was starving to death. Usually, hunger drives him out of his cage to do desperate fly-by’s at our heads until we refill his feed dish. When his frequent sorties continued after I had refilled the food, I thought maybe there was something wrong with the latest bag of seed. I bought some new, more expensive seed, but his friendliness only increases every day. We’ve actually had to resort to closing his cage door to get him to leave us alone. William sought me out the other day when I had left him watching a video and eating a baggie of snacks on the sofa. Oscar wouldn’t leave him alone. Oscar had never willingly gone near William before! Oscar landed on Kip’s shoulder and returned several times after Kip waved him off. He sits frequently on my shoulder now and spent the last 30 minutes climbing all over this computer table to see what everything was. He is suddenly curious about everything and has no fear. Yesterday, he even jumped on a baking tray I had just pulled out of the oven and must have burned his little birdie feet. I don’t know what caused the change, but we’re enjoying it. William, who can’t say the letter ‘s’ yet, frequently asks to see O-car and enjoys having the bird stand on his hand. Or he yells at O-car to get off the kitchen table, the main place where he’s not allowed to be but frequently ends up. It’s a dramatic change, but it’s fun to show Kip what birds can be like and why I thought it would be fun to have one.

Word Confusiation

Ever since we "moved it, moved it" at Grandma's house, William has been singing that song. Or a slight variation on the song... "I like to move it, Mommy!"

When he gets talking too fast he calls me Moddy and he calls Kristin Dammy!

Tonight he was carrying a bunch of books and asked me if could "lay down". I laid down and he slammed them all down on my back. I laughed hysterically while he repeated, "Are you OK Daddy?" Kristin tells me he asked if I could "hold these".

The After-Thanksgiving Blues

William is on an "I NEED this" kick. Today he told me that he NEEDS to get on a plane and fly to Utah to see his grandma and her cat. Wish we could do it again!

Hmmmm.... I wonder who has it now...