Attention Must Be Paid!

Luke is napping and Weston is not--which is a combination that never, ever happens--so I thought I'd sit here on the floor and write a blog post. So I put Weston on the floor beside me and for the last ten minutes, I've been sitting here with my computer. And not writing a word. Why, you ask? Because Weston now laughs.

And it's addicting, that laugh. I mean, it's HARD to make this kid laugh. I have a few tricks up my sleeve and I've been rotating through them, instead of writing. And every time I stop paying attention to him, this scene repeats itself:

Weston: Waah.
Me: What's the matter?
Weston: *Grin*
Me: Aww, look at your smile! Are you smiling?
Weston: *Coo*
Me: *Kiss his fat cheeks*
Weston: *Grabs my hair and waves it around*
Me: Ouch! Hey, you! Let go!
Weston: *Grin*
Me: I'm gonna eat you up! *Pretend to eat his face*
Weston: *Starts biting my chin/nose/whatever else is within his range*

I remember now how much I love three-month-olds. I also remember that from the time Luke was three months until he was over a year old, I never got ANYTHING done because every time I'd start something, I'd get distracted by the cute baby. Something tells me that history is about to repeat itself.

DIY Halloween

About two months ago, McMoose and I had the following conversation:

Me: I think I'd like to make the kids' Halloween costumes this year.
McMoose: Homemade Halloween costumes are always so awful. They look so amateur.
Me: Super, thanks for the vote of confidence. Fine, then, YOU find them some costumes to wear.

About three weeks ago, McMoose and I had the following conversation:
McMoose: I found Weston a great baby Darth Vader costume.
Me: What about Luke's Luke Skywalker costume?
McMoose: All the ones I looked at sucked. They're thin and cheap looking and they won't keep him warm.
Me: Huh.
McMoose: You should just make him one.
Me: I thought you said homemade costumes never looked right.
McMoose: Yeah...but it's just a shirt and some pants...you can make that. I have confidence in your abilities.

And thus began the biggest fail of my sewing experience. Did you know that it's NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to find sewing patterns for a Luke Skywalker costume? So I thought, well, how hard can a shirt and a pair of pants possibly be? I went online and found some tutorials on making pants and robes--tutorials that said things like, "Measure the child's legs. Then measure out 3 extra inches of fabric." Except that I don't work like that. That's WAY too much room for error for me. No, I need patterns that I can trace over so I know EXACTLY where to cut and there is NO WAY to mess it up.

My first attempt yielded pants that wouldn't pull up past his knees and a shirt that was very oddly puckered. And I was totally going to say, "Oh, well, he won't remember and it'll be dark anyway, so it's fine." Until we were at the fabric store and realized that yes, there might not be any Skywalker costume patterns, but there are PLENTY of karate costume patterns. Thanks to McCall's, Luke now has a much cooler looking Luke Skywalker costume. And...because the costume patterns were one sale, I bought two other booklets, which means that I now have patterns to make 10 different costumes. Guess how I intend to spend my free time and spare money over the next year.

(P.S. Next time, I'm starting on the costumes 2 months ahead of time so I don't have to stay up until 2 am working on the darn things.)

Luke-isms of Late

This morning, Luke looked at himself in a bathroom mirror and said, "I'm shaggy. We should probably get me a haircut today." (And that's exactly what we did because yes, he was shaggy.)

Yesterday, in the car...
Luke: When Weston gets big, he'll eat all the spiderwebs.
Me: Huh?
Luke: And the bad spiders, too.
Me: Wait, did you say he'd eat them?
Luke: Yes. But he's too small right now. He needs teeth first.

This morning, in the car...
Luke: Do you mind?!
Me: Me?
Luke: DO? YOU? MIND?!
Me: No, I don't mind.
Luke: No! I'm asking Weston if he minds. Do you mind, Weston?! *Alters voice slightly* Yes, I do mind! *Goes back to regular voice* Yes, he does mind. Mama? Weston says he minds.

Also in the car this morning...
Me: Hey, look, I see a police car.
Luke: Yes. There was a police car. *Thinks for a moment* A police car is a VEHICLE!

At the hairdresser's...
Hairdresser: Are you all ready for Halloween?
Luke: No. It's still autumn.
Hairdresser: It's what?
Luke: Not Halloween. It's AUTUMN.

And a few minutes later...
Hairdresser: Do you see the pig right there? What color is that pig?
Luke: It's white AND pink. That means it's multi-colored.

He got a little rubber ducky at the hairdresser's and for whatever reason, the duck has on a monocle.
Me: That duck has a monocle!
Luke: What's monocle?
Me: A monocle is kind of like eyeglasses, but it just goes over one eye instead of two.
Luke, after considering this for a minute: Actually, I think Monocle is the name of the duck.

Our Month In Pictures

As promised, here are some pictures from the past month.

McMoose and Weston waiting for lunch at a restaurant

This is his "See my big muscles?" pose:

Not exactly what I meant when I asked Luke to smile.

That's more like it! These pictures were taken when we were getting ready to go to an annual international festival here.

Luke and McMoose at the zoo. We've always tried to go to the zoo in the summer, when it was ridiculously hot. Turns out October is the perfect time for it. Luke is still talking about the fact that the queen bee was not visible in the hive they have for display and speculating as to where she might have been. I never thought I'd have this many conversations about a stinkin' bee.

See the way our double stroller is set up? It's kind of fun because whenever people walk past us, they do a double take because from the front, it looks just like a single stroller, until they see the arms and legs sticking out from the bottom seat.

He always looks a little bit worried in pictures, like maybe he's worried the flash will steal his soul.

I could (and routinely attempt to) eat those yummy cheeks.

We were trying to get him to smile at the camera, but apparently, McMoose is just too distracting.

Three!

Weston turned three months old yesterday, which means we're officially out of the "fourth trimester." I think he knows that he's the second born and that he needs to speak up for himself because he is getting the hang of that particular skill already. This kid has the oddest preferences ever. He likes being held in arms better than...well, anything else, really. But he can tell the difference between when I'm actually holding him and when he's in a baby carrier, even if his body is in the exact same position and he makes it clear that he wants BOTH my hands to be devoted to him. One of the reasons baby carriers are great is that you can hold the baby AND do something else--sweep the floor, clean a counter, get the two-year-old's lunch ready, etc. But Weston has decided that this won't do and so when he's in the carrier, he prefers to hold onto one of my hands and have me pat his back with the other. Totally defeats the purpose.

He has a serious pout and cry when he's mad about something. The funny thing is that when he's hungry or sleepy or needs a diaper change, he has a sweet, quiet little cry, but if you offend him somehow, he will emit a horrifying, high-pitched noise. Luke loves it because he can go make mean faces at his baby brother and make him shriek. (This does not bode well for the future, I feel.)

He's very fond of routines. And by "fond of routines," what I mean is "requires everything to be exactly so and if it isn't he will TELL you about it." I had gotten into the habit of putting him in his pajamas and then rocking him to sleep in the living room while watching something on TV. Now, he doesn't actually watch the screen, but I guess he'd gotten used to the noise because one night, a couple of weeks ago, the TV was being ornery, so I turned it back off. Apparently, that was the WORST THING THAT COULD EVER HAPPEN because never before had I heard that kind of screaming come from this baby. In the end, I had to play music videos on YouTube to get him to calm down enough to fall asleep. (I haven't repeated the mistake since. I now know to have a back-up DVD in the player, just in case the TV is wonky while I'm rocking him to sleep.)

He's turning out to be a little bit of a daredevil. This afternoon, he was hanging out in the swing while I was getting lunch ready and all of a sudden, he lurched to one side and almost tipped the whole swing over because of the momentum of his head. He thought it was hilarious, I thought it was...not. And during his bath tonight, he figured out how to dislodge himself from the little seat in his bathtub and went sliding down the tub. McMoose, who was right beside the tub, caught him and set him back up, at which point Weston grinned, giggled, and tried to do it again. DUDE. Why is my non-mobile baby already giving me heart attacks?

He still loves to be held most of the time and we are happily obliging. Really, how can you refuse someone so cuddly and smushy and sweet? (More pictures of the cuddly, smushy, sweetness coming soon.)

Long Overdue

The benefit to being married to a pack rat is that even when we have no idea where the camera cord is, given enough time, we will come across another random cord that will fit both the computer and the camera. Here are some pictures from August and September.

A reclining Weston:


Baths are so exhausting. *Yawn*

When Weston was about 5 weeks old, he decided that the swing wasn't such a bad place after all. As such, it has gotten way more use this time around. (And by "way more use," I mean that sometimes, when his mood is right, he'll sit in it for 15 minutes while we eat dinner. Dude, it's still better than nothing.)

Gotta love baby fingers!

I'm feeling a little bit nostalgic about the sleeper he's wearing because I tried putting it on him tonight and I couldn't even get his feet into it.

Baby hand and toddler hand:

I believe that look says, "Enough with the pictures, MOTHER."

Cheeky baby.

Our first day in the new house. Weston was less than impressed by my attempts at a Self-and-Baby portrait.

McMoose and I can't decide what color his eyes are. He says brown, I say...I don't know...maybe hazel?

Why can't I get these boys to smile at the same time?

Our first (and so far, only) family picture. That's our swing. In our yard. At our house. YES, I'm still excited.

I spent a lot of time sitting around with a camera and a sleeping baby during our first weekend at the house. Can you tell?

Luke spent that weekend playing in the dirt.

This picture was taken on my birthday. Weston celebrated by sitting and looking worried.

First on-camera smile!

No Good Mother

On Tuesday morning, we were out at a playground. It was a beautiful fall morning and Luke and I were enjoying the outdoors while Weston napped happily in the sling. All in all, the perfect morning. Enter Random Woman.

Woman: Hey!
Me: *Turn to see who's yelling*
Woman: You no good mother! Baby needs hat. Come on, lady!

Ok, seriously? I know lots of people like to offer unsolicited advice to moms who are out with babies...hoo boy, do I know it. But is it really necessary to heckle them too? Of course, I glared at her and she walked off huffily and that was the end of that interaction, at least for her, but it continued to bother me for a few reasons:

1. In any other situation, offering unsolicited advice is taboo, but because I have a baby, it's acceptable? Heck, no.
2. I might have been a mom who feels that hats are overrated, in which case, randomly yelling across the playground at me is probably not going to change my mind.
3. Alternately, I might be a mom who feels that hats are VITALLY IMPORTANT and who is already beating myself up because I forgot my baby's vitally important hat. In which case, you've just made my bad day even worse. Thanks.

In reality, I feel that hats are somewhat useful when it's cold (which it wasn't) or really sunny (which it was, but we spent most of our time in the shade, so it wasn't a big deal.) Furthermore, vitamin D is important, especially since Weston is breastfed and not currently getting a vitamin supplement. So. Modest amounts of sunlight are good for the kid. He has a head full of hair and his skin tone is such that a few minutes in the weak, morning sun on a fall morning aren't going to cause him to get a sunburn. And more to the point, because I am his mother, because I spend EVERY DAY with him, because I know all of this about him, I weighed the pros and cons of a hat and decided that it was unnecessary. And yet, Random Woman felt that not only did she know better than me what was best for my child, but that because my choices differed from hers, it instantly made me a bad mom.

Of course, if all I have to do to earn a "Good Mother" sticker is put a hat on my kids, I'm set. I mean, according to that logic, I can feed them a steady diet of fast food, park them in front of the TV all day and night, and beat them senseless, but hey, none of that will matter so long as I remember a hat, right?

Customer Service: Fail

Apparently, the cold weather is bringing out the weirdos and as usual, they always feel the need to engage me in conversation. I strained my back on Tuesday and we've been housebound since, but I was feeling a bit better this morning, so I decided that we had to get out of the house. Usually, we go on a nature walk on Thursdays, but I was in no way up to that today, so instead, we went to a music class at a toy store. (By the way: before I had kids? I would never have guessed that toy stores and book stores held story times and music classes and the like. It's like a whole subculture.)

Now, I really wanted to like this toy store. It's locally owned, I love the toys they carry, they have a playroom for the kids to try out the toys--I mean, it's pretty awesome. Except for the owners. Twice now, I've gone in there and both times, they've ignored my existence until I struck up a conversation with them. (Meanwhile, they're perfectly friendly and talkative with most of the other patrons.) Dude. You run a business. Furthermore, you run a business selling TOYS during a recession and you were complaining just today that it wasn't going as well as you might like. So...maybe...be civil to ALL your customers?

Anyway, after I asked the lady about some of the toys on their shelves (and got terse, mono-syllabic answers in reply), she watched Luke play with the train table for a minute and then came out with this:

Lady: How old is the baby?
Me: Almost three months.
Lady: Oh. And have you been watching this other little boy for long?
Me: Uh...the other little boy is my older son.
Lady: Oh! I just...well...he looks nothing like you or the baby. I just figured you were the nanny.

Up until that point, I had totally been considering buying Luke's Christmas presents from there, but guess what? Now, we'll be ordering from Amazon.

Drive Time

I started a fitness class last week because (a) I still have 25 pounds to lose, post-Weston and (b) I suck at going to the gym unless I have a commitment like a class. (Could I just take a moment here? 25 pounds?! What on earth?! I need it to go away. Now.)

It's twice a week and the first day, I was all mopey because I didn't like the thought of leaving Weston. Not so much because I didn't want to, you know, LEAVE Weston, but because I'm afraid of baby bottles. Yes, afraid.

See, Luke LOVED bottles. So much so that when he got a bottle every once in a while, he would refuse to nurse for an unhealthy amount of time, in the hopes that he'd get another one. In fact, I remember one particularly harrowing experience which started as a nursing strike because he got a bottle and ended as a full-out hunger strike, where he was refusing solids, bottles, nursing, everything. Instead, he rolled under the coffee table and lay there and moaned FOR HOURS. (I don't know why he needed to be under the coffee table. Or why he needed to refuse to eat. Or why he needed to moan. But then, there was a lot about baby-Luke that I didn't understand.) In the end, we pretty much stopped giving him bottles at all because the occasional convenience just wasn't worth all the drama.

So I was worried that Weston might follow in his brother's footsteps. I worried that he might love bottles so much that I'd either have to wean him or never leave him again. As it turns out, I didn't have much to worry about because the kid is not at all pleased with the idea of deriving nutrition from a piece of silicone. He took a sum total of an ounce, let most of that run out of his mouth, and was more than happy to see me when I got home so he could eat. And since then, I've gone to the class two more times and McMoose hasn't even had to heat up a bottle because Weston just eats before I leave and after I get back.

Which means that twice a week, I get to drive in my car BY MYSELF, pick my own radio stations, and not have to point out every truck we pass. And really? The alone-in-the-car time is way more valuable than the time I actually spend in class.

Tempest

2.5

2.5 months. Our days are marked by big grins, big fusses, strings of drool, and strings of spit-up. Lots of snuggles and a little bit of playtime on the floor. Reaching and kicking and wiggling and snoring.

2.5 years. (Almost). Our days are marked by word plays and playgrounds, high energy and big hugs. Sweet I love yous and whiny fits. Running and jumping and climbing and requests to do it all by himself.

2.5 is a pretty nice place to be.

Trifecta

We had a terrible, horrible, very bad, no good day yesterday. Weston refused to nap all morning, so he was a grumpy, screaming mess. Luke was acting spectacularly like a two-year-old, ignoring everything I said and moving at the speed of an especially slow glacier. And I was tired and stressed and impatient. All in all, not a good combination.

Today, on the other hand, has been fabulous. We met some friends for some playtime, where Luke went off and built a whole city out of legos while Weston napped like an angel. We went out to a Thai place for lunch, where Luke ate all his food and kept himself busy at the table (without even a high chair or crayons!), and Weston sat quietly on my lap while I ate. And now, they're both asleep. And of course, today, I'm feeling well-rested and happy and I have patience to spare.

So why is it that when one of us has a bad day, we ALL have a bad day? It would be so much easier if we could schedule it such that only one of us is acting nutty on any given day. I'm pretty sure the answer is that when I'm grouchy, they both pick up on it and it feeds their craziness, which is the worst. system. ever. It's amazing the species has survived this long because I'm pretty sure that if I were a mama tiger who was having a rough day and my tiger babies started biting my tail and clawing my ears? I'd probably just eat them.

What I'm Doing

Reasons this blog hasn't been updated recently:
-Weston likes being held with TWO hands.
-When Weston is entertaining himself, Luke likes to be held with two hands.
-When Luke and Weston are both entertaining himself, I'm stripping wallpaper.
-When Luke and Weston are both entertaining themselves and I'm taking a break from stripping wallpaper, I'm sewing hats with a friend.
-Or doing the laundry, which I'm fairly sure is self-generating because there is NO WAY we go through that many clothes.
-Or unpacking boxes.
-Or trying to figure out how I'm going to make Luke a Luke Skywalker costume because once he found out that Luke Skywalker carries a light saber, OF COURSE that's what he wants to be for Halloween.
-Or trying to find train stencils for the playroom wall.
-Or sleeping.
-Or working on some paperwork I need to get done and fast.

(In reality, 98% of the time, I'm either holding a kid or sleeping because Weston wakes up, oh, five or six times a night, which means that if I spend 8 hours in bed, I might get a total of five broken hours. How long does this phase last?)