|
|
September's First Update!
As I sit here, my son Caleb is hollering at me that his tanker truck had a spill, my son Gavriel is repeatedly slamming his fingers in the desk drawer to amuse himself, and I’m overwhelmed by the blessings showering down on me. I’m not sure things could be any better, honestly. So many things have been happening that I’ve had trouble keeping them straight in my brain let alone getting them put down on paper. But now that things are slowing down, I figured I’d better get them down before I lose them forever. Biggest milestone: Gavi has been walking for two weeks now! What a terrible mom to have not shouted it to the world before now. August 21st marked his first multiple steps. He’d been taking one or even two little steps for about a month, but since it was really just…stepping, I didn’t figure it counted as walking. But then on Thursday night, the three of us were hanging out in the hallway – Caleb’s favorite reading spot! – and Gavi walked to us from the wall across from us. I kept putting him back up against the opposite wall and making him do it over and over. When Jonny got home, we were laughing and trying to tell him about it when Gavi walked from the hallway to the kitchen to greet HIM! It went from four steps to seven in less than half an hour! And here we are, two weeks later and he can walk all the way down the hall that he could only walk across the first time. He gets a kick out of going faster and faster until he just face plants. He’s the physical definition of “the walking wounded.” He missed the tub with his hands and instead caught it with his face, and then he tumbled down the stair on our porch to meet the patio with that same face. My beautiful little boy is looking like he went a few rounds with Frazier. Grr. And Caleb is getting SO verbal! All of a sudden I have a whole new respect for the patience my parents displayed when dealing with a chatterbox like me. He’s also really big into favorites. His favorite toy and book change by the minute, but his favorite food has been oatmeal for at least two weeks. His favorite animal at the zoo this morning was the black bear – because he was sleeping upright in a tree, which he thought was “awesome” – and his favorite phrase is, “so how you today?” It’s fantastic to see how he’s growing, and also how far my eyes can bulge out of my head before my brain implodes. It gets to that point sometimes. That’s when it’s time to play in the sandbox for Caleb! The two of them are really starting to play together. I knew it was going to be awesome, but I figured I’d have to wait another six months to get to this point. Whoo-hoo! I’m available as a referee most of the time, because even though I want them to settle their own issues, Gavi can’t stand up for himself just yet. They run around the coffee table in the living room until one of them falls down. Surprisingly enough, it’s usually Caleb! They make me SO happy! Gavi and I had the chance to go out to lunch with my friend Evelyn last week. While I was digging in the diaper bag for some wipes to wash his hands, he was chowing down on a blue crayon. Honestly, the whole point was gone in the two and a half seconds it took me to turn back to him. No wonder they make those suckers non-toxic. That wasn’t the worst part, though. When I took it away from him, he cried. When I tried to get it all out of his mouth, he threw up. Then when I got the urp cleaned up with the same wipes that had distracted me in the first place, he started grinning with blue crayon specks in his teeth. Ugh! Talk about feeling like a crummy mom! Then there was GG’s b-day party on Sunday! We had about thirty people all gathered around my Gram to pray before we ate. Whoever was praying took the opportunity to thank God for who Grammy was to different people. “And please bless Mom, Grandma, GG, Ruthie, and friend.” “And Caleb,” came a small voice from the center of the room. Oh my goodness, those of us who heard it were choking with laughter. It was one of those kid moments that you wish you had on tape! Gavi kissed a peacock at the zoo today. Or rather, came awfully close. The boys were playing on the grass when a peacock started toward them. Caleb got all panicky and ran away screeching. But Gavi just stood his ground as the bird got closer and closer. It was one of those moments where I honestly didn’t know what the right thing to do was. I don’t want my kids to be fearful, but I also don’t want to go down in history as the mom who allowed her baby to be mangled by a harmless bird! So I just started praying and didn’t make any moves. The peacock was probably just smelling the biter cookie in his mouth, but it sure looked like he was poised for a smooch. And just as Gavi was leaning in, the bird continued his journey toward the giraffes. Ugh, I can be brave, and I don’t mind most germs, but if my sweet Gavers got avian flu from frenching a peacock, I’d be pretty perturbed. Caleb just came and asked me if he could take a bath. “Just me, not Gavi. I need some time by myself.” I completely understand, kiddo. But a mama must comply…
Happy August!
Slacking on the blogging. But the good news is that I’ve got all the photos in Caleb’s album from his first two years! Yay! I figure it will only take me another year to get Gavi’s first year album put together. I don’t have much of him on film, though, so I’ll have to figure out how to get all those digital photos printed without using up all of our ink. I hate trying new things. Hence, it will take me another year to figure out what pictures to use and where to have them printed. If anyone has had great success somewhere, will you let me know? (Shutterfly, King Soopers, etc.) Gavi’s biggest achievement of late is being able to stand up on his own without pulling up on anything. It’s kind of shocking to just see him out standing in the middle of the floor with nothing around him. Before that, we’ve just been counting how many seconds he can stand on his own. He hit twenty seconds last week in Grandma and Grandpa’s little pool, and the few times we’ve counted since then have gotten us up to twenty-seven seconds. And just this morning, he moved one foot out in front of him in what I thought was going to be his first step, but then he just sat down as soon as it hit the ground. I guess that doesn’t really count. He’s so cute when he pushes baskets or walkers around. He just makes me sick how adorable he is. Caleb, too, is just about the cutest thing on two legs. He’s a little tougher to be constantly delighted in because he’s often testing his boundaries and makes me angry a lot. For instance, I spent twenty minutes this afternoon scrubbing the dry erase marker off the door from where he parked himself while I was feeding Gavi. When I asked him what he was doing, he answered, “coloring!” I suppose I should have thought to ask WHAT he was coloring. Lesson learned. But he’s so smart! (Smart enough to know that his best chance of coloring on the door was when mom was feeding Gavi, anyway!) I love to hear him reason things out. Like this morning on the way to the zoo, I asked him how many animals we would see at the zoo that had black on them. He came up with zebra and snakes. Brilliant! And he’s really solicitous of Gavi, which covers a multitude of sins. They play duets together on the piano! I’ve had great luck with telling Caleb to only hit two keys at a time to keep it sounding like he’s pounding on the keyboard. Then Gavi hits another couple – all he can reach! – and they just sound adorable together! Caleb has also invented a game we can all play in the sand. We call it “Castle,” but it’s really more of a… “pile.” Caleb and I stack up as much sand as we can in the time it takes Gavi to find us. Then he crawls over it and destroys our “castle.” While he’s destroying it, we immediately start piling more sand up in a mound until Gavi finds that castle. It sounds incredibly dull probably, but it’s a high stakes race against the clock. (The stakes being the height of the pile, and the clock being Gavi’s ability to crawl over and demolish a pile of sand.) We had pictures taken at the studio last week. Ohmigoodness, they turned out WAY cuter than I wanted! The problem with great pictures is that you see how adorable your children are, and are tempted to spend a mortgage payment to purchase every single pose. Of course, the majority of us don’t have a mortgage payment to spare, so I have some advice for you: Take your kid(s) at the crankiest possible time of day. The photographer will be lucky to get one nice shot among the masses of angry, cranky baby shots, and then your temptation to spend a small fortune is removed. I settled with spending every penny I had on me, and it still wasn’t enough to get the multitude of great poses. I want to see if Jonny will get them formatted so I can get them up on here. The Fashbaugh grandparents came to visit a couple of weeks ago. It was wonderful for them to be able to spend time with the boys ~ and us! ~ and I think it was honestly my favorite trip they’ve ever made. Gavi is getting more personable, and Caleb is just a sucker for Grandpa. (And pleasant toward Grandma, just not jumping over the moon excited to see her like he is with Grandpa!) Of course, the biggest joy was taking everyone to the zoo. I think everyone would enjoy the zoo with Caleb, though! His little comments and questions really draw you in. And finally, the most awesome thing about being a parent of boys. Caleb is really into trucks, trains, tractors and trapezes. (Threw the last one in to see if you were really reading.) The other day, he was playing with his toy airplane and rotating a ball on the top. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing. Then he came to me and said, “Look, Mommy, a cement mixer!” I was blown away by his creativity. Then not an hour later, we were at the park when a real life cement mixer came to replace the concrete of one of the sidewalk blocks! So we got to watch as the truck lowered his slide, then opened the floodgate to send the cement flowing down, and how the men used trowels and boards to fill in and smooth it, then the slide lift back up. How could I have ever known that something that mundane would be the highlight of my day?!
Happy five/sixths of a year, Gaveroo!
Gavi’s ten months old now. I had forgotten how hilarious and destructive kids this age could be. He’s constantly in the toilet swirling his hands around and laughing, unrolling toilet paper and eating it, and throwing anything within reach onto the floor. The BEST NEWS: he has finally started putting things from his hands into his mouth. He’s been able to delicately pick up things between his thumb and forefinger for about a month, but then he shoves his whole hand in his mouth and gets frustrated. This saves me a ton of time, because I can pop him in his highchair and let him start feeding himself breakfast or dinner while I eat, then I feed him the rest when I’m done. No more waiting until my dinner is cold! He’s also down to one nap a day. I had hoped to keep him napping a little longer. Grr. Then today, during that ONE nap, Caleb decided HE didn’t want to sleep, so crashed a bunch of blocks and woke Gavi up. He got a spanking for disobedience, since he knows he’s not supposed to get out of bed for that hour. But I had to wait a little bit, because I was really upset about Gavi being waked up, so I didn’t want to spank in anger. Then when we were shopping this afternoon, some little girls were playing with a vending machine. Caleb looked at me and said, “They should be touching buttons. They need a spanking.” It was literally half an hour after I had spanked him ~ how can I go from being THAT upset to just thinking he’s the cutest, smartest little bug in the universe in less than an hour?! My big decision right now is how much longer to nurse Gavi. He’s become quite the biter – and yanker! He’ll chomp down then haul his head back before I can disengage. Every day, I say, “I’M DONE!” Then I think about how much I’ve wanted to nurse him until he’s a year old, and I get suckered into it again. It’s a good thing he’s adorable. Or a bad thing... depending on which side of the teeth you’re standing on.
Mostly Gavi update...
We’re now calling Gavi “Pearly Five.” He went from having two teeth to five teeth in less than two days! To celebrate, I fed him bananas for the first time in two months. He ate ‘em! Of course, I had been mashing them up, but now I gave him tiny chunks. That may have made the difference. I’m getting ready for a garage sale! (The transition is that Gavi is pulling everything out of boxes and making an even worse mess of my house than it already was!) Ohmigoodness, it’s such a hoot! It’s fun to feel like I’m doing something tangible to contribute to the family’s financial well-being. Shopping wisely with coupons and budgeting is sort of intangible. Of course, Jonathan is so tired of the whole thing that he’ll just be glad when it’s all over. But a lot of my family has contributed things, so I’m hoping to make a bucket o’ money. Sorry to sound greedy. I’m only apologizing for SOUNDING greedy. Not for actually BEING greedy. Swimming and playing are still our biggest activities of the day. With MOPS and Bible study being out for the summer and Caleb being too big for the gym, we don’t really have any structured outings right now except for church. It makes my life easier AND harder, because we don’t have a set schedule, but I do miss the ability to say, “I don’t have to plan anything for right now because we’re going to be at such and such a place.” But it’s cool because we get to go swimming every day. In this stinking heat – we were ten degrees hotter than ARIZONA yesterday! – I thank God daily for the access to a pool. And Caleb is so self-sufficient that I only have to worry about my little Gavi. It’s a good time to be a mom! The bad thing about this phase is that Gavers is SO adventurous! He keeps climbing up on things that he can't get down from. We have stairs by Caleb's bed, and he keeps climbing them and then crying because he can't get down. Also, with the garage sale stuff laying around, he'll crawl up on a box, then just sit there hollering because he doesn't know how to get down. He also goes through a box of biter cookies a week, which means I do a LOT of laundry. But he's SO cute that I just can't make myself care about his sticky, icky little hands getting everything dirty.
July Catch Up...
It’s gotten to where if I don’t blog often enough, I’ve already forgotten half the stuff I really wanted to remember. So I’ve started just making notes on a piece of paper to remind myself when I don’t have time to blog. Which is good, because most of what I’m typing about today is ancient history. I really need to do this more often! Caleb has his own unique way of talking. He’s brilliant, of course, and verbose, but sometimes it takes a little bit of getting used to. His phrases are almost right, but just a little off. Like my personal favorite, “Not so quite.” “Are you ready to get out of the pool, sweetie?” “Not so quite.” “It’s time to go to bed, beloved.” “Not so quite.” Too cute. Or when he kept nagging me about the “put raps.” I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he was talking about. Then he said, “Remember? In Royal tummy?” Jonathan had let him play with the RAT PUPS before he fed them to our snake. He was so cute with them, too! I came into the room where they were playing, and it looked like Caleb was holding a mouse up to give me kisses. I don’t care about my son handling rodents so much as I hate the idea of having a mouse loose in my house. But since it was just a little rat pup who doesn’t do much more than crawl, he was free to play with them as much as he liked. The funniest part was when he put the pup down on the floor, squooshing him just a little, and said, “Rat sleeping,” then punctuated it with a snoring sound. And the two rats kissed a lot. Pretty innocuous stuff, really. Gavi is getting two more teeth, and if he survives the coming in, I will be grateful forever to the giver of those teeth. He’s not getting diaper rashes like Caleb did, but he’s SO dang cranky it blows my mind. This little sweetness turns into a howling lunatic when he’s in this much pain. I’ll hold him until he falls asleep, but the second I try to put him down, he’ll awaken with a shriek, and continue yowling until I pick him up again. Good times to be a mom, lemme tell you! He had his first pizza bone a couple weeks ago! He ate the majority of it, then gummed the last little bit until it resembled the dough it started from. It was so cute. I got some pics, but since I’m the photographer, they might not be entirely clear. Ugh. Jonathan and I took Caleb to his first professional sporting event ~ A Colorado Crush game! I think he may have been more impressed with the BMX display at half time than the arena football game, but he had fun regardless. He also experienced the joy of… *drumroll, please*… cotton candy! Ohmigoodness, was it ever a blast to share some new experiences with him. Jonathan and I are being frugal and neither of us are particularly sporty, so getting free tickets to an event that we’d never seen was a fun way for all of us to try something new! Then we took Gavi to the zoo on his own while Caleb stayed at Grandma’s. It was such a blast to be able to stay at the zoo longer than two hours! We saw parts of the zoo that I’d never seen before, and it was awesome. Plus, Gavi got to take little naps whenever he wanted, but we didn’t have to deal with temper tantrums when we chose not to stay at the hippos for forty-five minutes. Caleb has started being brave in the pool – FINALLY! He’s got his little lifejacket, but he was still clinging to me like he was terrified he was going to drown. Since he was tall enough to touch the bottom – of the pool! – I convinced him to finally walk around. And once he understood that his head wasn’t going under water even when he lifted his feet up, that was it for Mommy. It’s so gratifying to have him discover that he can do something on his own. Now he’s a doggy-paddling fool! (And when he’s telling someone about it, he describes the arm motion as “the wheels on the bus go round and round.”) I’m getting really confident in his stability. Yesterday, I took Gavi in his new lifejacket out to the deep end, and Caleb followed us without any assistance. It’s a blast! When we have pennies and nickels, we've always given them to Caleb to put in his bank. But now there are two banks - one for Caleb and one for Gavi. When I put money in, I usually put it in Gavi's since Caleb is able to put money in his own. But I have to stop that now, because I watched him last time. He put a penny in his, said "For Caleb," then a penny in Gavi's and said, "For Gavi." He can't share a monster truck with his brother, but when it comes to money, he's splitting it right down the middle. Maybe because he has the concept of the clink, but not of the money itself. Ah, and now, the story that smacked my ego into oblivion: Caleb, Gavi and I went to Sam’s with Grandma a few weeks ago. Of course, Grandma bought Caleb some ice cream, and surprisingly enough, a couple of Disney movies found their way into our cart as well. When we were getting ready to leave, Grandma went to get a hot dog for Grandpa, and said she’d meet us at the car. So we headed to the door with our receipt. The lady at the door commented on Caleb’s face covered with ice-cream, and Caleb said, “Grandma bought me ice cream and I got it ALL OVER!” Then she pointed out the awesome videos and said someone had good taste. Caleb said, “Grandma bought me movies!” The lady looked right at me and said, “Do you just have them for the weekend?” SHE THOUGHT I WAS THE GRANDMA! The smile froze on my face and I just kept walking. Seriously, my brain got a little stuck. It was TERRIBLE! So, after buying stock in an eye cream company, I’ve decided to start taking action. Grr…
Wednesday Wanderings...
Every parent is faced with the kind of questions that make us uncomfortable to answer. Not so much BAD uncomfortable, but “what the heck do I say now” uncomfortable. Caleb asks “why?” about forty-nine times an hour, and sometimes those answers are a little sketchy for me. Some of them – usually regarding nursing Gavi – are glossed over lest I hear my words repeated in pleasant company. But yesterday came the first one that REALLY got me. “Where’s God?” Caleb asked on the way to VBS. (Since he’s not really attending, just accompanying me to nursery duty, I’m not really sure where the concept came from.) My brain went a tiny bit fuzzy. I was thinking so many things at once. “How can you simplistically present the idea of omnipresence? Do I dumb down my answer since my child is two? Or does that offend the Almighty Creator of the universe? If I answer wrong, could I derail my son’s entire spiritual future? GO FIND YOUR MOTHER, KID!” So I said a quick prayer, then responded, “God is everywhere, sweetie.” After a brief pause: “Okay.” No other comments, questions, ANYTHING. I at least expected to hear “why?” So I mentally wiped my brow, and considered the answer a success. I told Jonathan about it at dinner last night. So in return, he asked Caleb where God was. He thought for a minute, then said, “God’s at King Soopers.” Technically correct, right?! Anyway, we about bust a gut laughing. I love how he’s learning. His vocabulary and comprehension are just growing by leaps and bounds every day. Also, the bed seems to be an incredible success! He doesn’t sleep a whole lot yet, but he’s got the concept that he needs to stay in bed, whether it’s for his hour of quiet time or at night time. I put a couple of books by his bed, and he’s got a few stuffed animals. The biggest trouble has been him keeping Mr. Gavi up by shouting and singing when he should be sleeping. But after hearing some of the horror stories of my friends’ children’s experience, I was a little nervous. Plus, his first night was a little rocky. Our bathroom is only half done, but we have to wait until my Papa comes back from Germany to finish it. The stupid shower added two full days, and unfortunately, Jonathan and I weren’t as much help as he probably would have liked. Grr. But even unfinished, it’s about sixty times more beautiful than it was! And it seems SO much bigger! I can’t wait to get the shower done! Gavi is doing really well, too! He’s gaining a LOT of weight! I suspect that when we go back next week for his weight checkup, he’ll have gained about three pounds. It’s sad to see his little jowls come back, but I hate to think of him being undernourished just so his face is pretty! His big thing for interaction now is shaking his head. It’s the first way we’ve really seen him communicate. (His "lalalas" aren't contingent on our responses.) He’s so sweet! Jonathan actually feared that he had an inner ear infection for a while because he shakes his head so much. But as soon as anyone shakes their head back at him, he’s done! Then he’ll watch them until they nod, then shakes his head again. He’s giggling like a teeny madman, too. He’s such a sweetheart, I can’t hardly stand it. He’s more of a cuddler than Caleb ever was. It’s fun to just smoosh him. He and I get up earlier than the rest of the family, so I get a lot of time just snuggling him. Plus, he’s still waking up occasionally at night, and while he’s adjusting to the new bed, I’ll get up with him. And Jonny will probably hate having this in print, but in case Gavi ever goes back and reads this, it’s important to have on the record: Jonathan loves to sit and just kiss Gavi. He pulls him back when Gavi starts slipping him the tongue, but they’ll just sit and smile at each other and kiss forever. It’s too precious.
June Delights
Ohmigoodness, I feel like I brag on my kiddos so much that it’s all I do! Then I look at my blog, and it’s been five hundred years since my last post. My mom told me yesterday that I blog more than anyone she knows. But I’m the only person I know who doesn’t scrapbook or keep baby books, so with that perspective, get ready for my latest novel… Gavi has the biggest achievements these days: ~ open mouth kisses ~ pulling himself up on people and furniture ~ walking around said people and furniture ~ sings his “lalala’s” five hours a day ~ shaking his head no in response to someone else nodding or shaking their heads There have been other things I’ve forgotten – like how he started reaching out for whoever he wanted to pick him up. Or crawling like a tiny wind up toy. Or pushing his arms through his shirt rather than being a potato with arms. Or how he undermines my authority by giggling his little head off even though I’m yelling at his brother not to squish him. He’s playing with cars and trucks already, too! And he’s got three more teeth pushing their way through. I hope they come soon because he’s a cranky little cuss! Caleb’s biggest news of the day is… drum roll please… HE HAS A BIG BOY BED! Oh, is it beautiful. My Dad built it for my sister or my gram a few years back, and both of them have moved on to bigger and better beds. So they donated it to their grandson! It has a headboard that perfectly matches both the changing table AND the crib in their room and a better mattress than I’ve ever owned. Plus, Grandma went shopping for sheets and blankets and everything to entice him into it. NOT that he needed to be enticed! I’ve been prepping him for this day for the past couple of months, so as soon as Grandpa showed up yesterday, he demanded, “Where my big boy bed?” Anyway, we got pictures of him in it, and he kept requesting naps yesterday, so I think it was a success. During his actual nap, we were ripping out the bathroom, so he didn’t sleep for long. He’s in and out of that thing so quickly it’s terrifying. So when we put him to bed last night, I anticipated no problems. However, because the bed’s inaugural night was one in which we had been doing hard physical labor – I ripped down two walls of drywall, y’all! – and I had been forced to take an antihistamine at three thirty in the afternoon, Jonathan and I were barely able to stay conscious to get the boys into bed. A mistake I would warn other parents with new big kid beds not to make. At twelve thirty this morning, Gavi did his usual screaming bit, which I usually ignore. But since HE was in his new bed, too – a big boy bed in its own right! – I figured I’d better go reassure him. But I tripped over Caleb sleeping on the floor. Why was Caleb on the floor when he was so excited about his new bed? Because his bed was filled with EVERY BOOK HE OWNS. And most of the toys, too. If I hadn’t been so exhausted, I would have gone and got the camera then and there. As it was, I just threw all his books in his laundry basket and helped him back into bed without a lecture. And Gavi was just doing his usual teething cranky crying, so I just cuddled him and popped him back in bed. In other news, have I mentioned how much Gavi LOVES the pool?! We’ve only been three times, but every time he just giggles and coos. And Caleb loves it much more than last year. I was a little nervous about that. Unfortunately, since I’m the only person with the two of them, I have to hold both of them the majority of the time. Caleb has a little life jacket that keeps him more buoyant, and he’s able to sit on the stairs for part of the time so I can swoosh Gavi around a little. It’s precious. On Tuesday, I realized that since I could sit on the bottom and Caleb’s taller than I am sitting, he might be able to stand up rather than holding on to me the whole time. So I said, “Let’s see if you can touch the bottom. Stand up, duckie. Can you touch the bottom?” He looked at me like I was insane, then reached around and grabbed his own hind end. MAN, I love that kid! Yesterday at lunch, Caleb finished before the rest of us. He asked, politely, “Milk please, Mommy?” I said, “I’ll get you some milk as soon as I’m done eating.” He gazed around the table, checking out everyone’s plates, then said, “Grandpa, you done eating?” Everybody chuckled at his persistence. Grandpa said, “Yeah, buddy, but I don’t know where your milk is.” “Grandpa, it’s in the fridgerator!” he exclaimed. We erupted with laughter. The munchie has an answer for everything! There are a thousand other stories I could tell about the adorableness that is each of my boys, but since I’m outta time – hafta get back to that bathroom, dontcha know?! – I better leave it with this: If I could freeze these boys at this age, I wouldn’t. If it was my choice to keep them here, I would have to pass. But I am enjoying 98% of it more than I could have ever dreamed. I just know that something even MORE fantastic is on the way!
|
