Lily says

Lately Lily has been amusing me even more than usual with our hilarious conversations. If you have been following on Facebook, I'm sure that you've had more than your fill of Lily's one-liners. Tonight I thought I'd post one on the blog - to keep it equitable. Every night, Lily and I read together for between 30 minutes to an hour. After our shared reading time, we say our good-nights which usually includes "I love you's" among other things. Tonight, as usual, I told Lily that I loved her, and she broke out in a little song that I can't quite capture in writing, but it went a little something like..."You are the greatest, greatest, greatest rock star mommy"....followed by the explanation..."I just wanted to do it a little differently for you tonight". Different, she is - completely smitten, I am.

How we spent our sick days

Wash away those germs!

Our sweet, sweet boy


William watched daddy shovel the driveway through the window. I ran into the kitchen to get a tissue for his nose, and by the time I got back, he had crawled on top of the shelf...and fallen off.

Bubble time!

No joke - Lily came down the stairs wearing this 'outfit', stood in front of me, and completely straight-faced said, "Giddy on up and giddy on down".


So the entire family was struck down with strep throat last week, and poor little William had sinusitis on top of it. The worst part is that I had no idea. William got what we thought was a simple cold a couple weeks ago. We didn't think much of it, as he did not seem to be grumpy or in any discomfort. The only changes we saw were decreased interest in food (other than blueberries, applesauce, and yogurt) and maybe a slight disruption in sleeping habits, both things that could easily be explained by a cold.

I then got sick with a fever and chills, but that did not last long, and then I just had a persistent sore throat with a general feeling of ickiness. Looking back, of course, I should have known that this was not my typical cold symptoms, but when you are caught up with the day-to-day stuff, I was more concerned with just making it through the day with two little ones while feeling crappy than I was concerned with what was actually ailing me. Carl finally caught the bug, recognized that it was not a cold (and likely strep), and went into his doctor to have it confirmed.

After Carl's diagnosis, we took the kiddos to our Pediatrician. Now, bare in mind that Lily never once complained of anything (despite days of Carl and I both asking if she felt okay) and never acted even slightly different than normal. We really just brought her to the doctor since we were all going anyway and because strep is so highly contagious that it seemed like a possibility. When we first talked with their doctor, he mentioned how recent studies had shown that many kids tested positive for strep but didn't have any real symptoms and really didn't need to be treated, but the nurse swabbed them anyway to run the culture. When the doctor looked in Lily's throat, he stopped short and very dryly said, "That throat is impressive. When her culture comes back positive, we are treating her. My throat now hurts just looking at that." He also checked William and did not see the same swollen throat, but based on other symptoms, decided that William had sinusitis. Moments later, their strep tests came back positive, and then we all took a family drive over to Walgreens (at 7:30 pm) to get 4 prescriptions for 4 different antibiotics. Good times.

Thank you to mom who had Lily over for a sleepover on Friday night and to Ingrid who gave us a much-needed adults-only lunch break today. This is especially nice since we are gearing up for another week spent indoors due to the "storm of the century" coming early this week. Between snow days and illnesses, Lily has been in school only a handful of times this month. (Why couldn't illnesses and snow days overlap??) I guess it's a good thing that we really like our house because I have a feeling that we will only see the inside of it for the next few days. And so it goes...

15-month check-up

William went to his 15-month-old check-up yesterday, and as expected, everything looks good. His current stats are: 26 lbs. 10 oz. (about 80th percentile), 33 in. (about 90th percentile) with head circumference at the 50th percentile. We went over all the usual things, and his doctor noted (and we agree) that he is a spatially-oriented (or maybe more accurately a bodily-kinesthetic) child who needs to be active and on the move. In fact, I don't think he stood still the entire time we were in the room aside from when we had to hold him down for his shots (which he did not like). Lily, of course, wanted to see William get his shots and is looking forward to her appointment next week to get her vaccinations for Kindergarten! But overall, William is a healthy, happy little boy. We will continue to work on his eating habits and verbal skills. His current words include: all done, thank you, dada, mama, this, that, yeah, yay, uh-oh, choo-choo, duck, quack, moo, and more. Some of these words he has only said a few times, but again, we're working on it. Here are a few pictures of our little monkey right now:

Standing on the chair with sidewalk chalk in his mouth. He has also attempted to stand on the arm of this chair and reach out to the lamp next to it (just this very day, in fact).

When I opened the refrigerator to get his milk out, he decided to grab a couple of strawberries.

Chemistry Friday

Experiment #1

Today Lily and I explored chemical reactions. First, she saw what happened when baking soda and vinegar mix.

Experiment #2

Measuring 1 inch of vinegar into a soda bottle

1 tablespoon of baking powder into balloon

Ready for the big moment

Experiment #3

Mixing baking soda and vinegar to make Irish soda bread

Inspired art

We received about a foot of snow overnight, so Lily had yet another day out of school today. I try to keep her busy with different projects on these days, but it is becoming more and more difficult to come up with new ideas. We've been talking about artists lately, so today's projects drew inspiration from two famous works of art.

Jasper Johns' Colored Alphabet
This painting sold for over 3.7 million dollars, by the way

Trains!

These pictures are from a couple weeks ago. We decided to go to a train store that is very close to our house where they have lots of train tables set up for the little ones to play with any time for free! It is the perfect cold, winter day activity.

William shows far more interest in trains than Lily ever did.

Lily is always there to help out her little brother (or for about 15 minutes when she let me know in no uncertain terms that this was a boring outing for her). William will probably enjoy the trains even more next year, and we will be looking for some William-only activities next year since we just found out that our school district is switching to full-day Kindergarten for everyone starting with the '11-'12 school year. Whoo hoo!!

There is a train track directly in front of the train store. It was about the cutest thing ever to see 20 little boys run over to the store-front windows and press their faces up against the glass when the store manager yelled, "Train!" William actually squealed and clapped when he saw the train.

We were then inspired to make our own train at home, using a few of our toy trains as models. We had lots of boxes left over from Christmas, so Lily chose which ones she thought would make good train cars and then designed everything from beginning to end.

William tries to figure out how to make this thing go.

I'll show you, little brother.

Oh, William! Not like that!

A crafty kind of day

Art and technology meet

Lily's interpretation of Starry Night

Some of Lily's recent artwork. I especially love the dancing snowmen (painted with the cork from a wine bottle) - they just look so joyful.

Carl's craft project. More than 10 years ago Carl cut and fit two boards to use as leaves for our antique table. On Sunday, he was suddenly inspired to complete the project by staining the leaves - not too bad!

William

William is growing and changing so much every day. Every time we go out people comment that he is such a happy baby, and he truly is. He continues to be on a fantastic sleeping schedule which I think contributes to his overall good mood.



Eating has been far more challenging with William, but we are working on it. William likes what he likes and is MUCH more hesitant to try new foods than Lily was. With Lily, she would at least TRY anything that we put in front of her. Definitely not so with William. His list of acceptable foods includes: hot dogs, chicken nuggets, blueberries, pineapple, kiwi, pears, applesauce, Cheez-Its, oatmeal, pancakes, graham crackers, Cheerios, goldfish, (sometimes) pasta with Parmesan cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, and corn. This may seem like a decent list, but it gets old fast. A fair number of these we had to keep trying again and again until they became acceptable, and I hate wasting food. But, at least Terra is always willing to clean up the leftovers. Our biggest challenge is vegetables. On most days, he eats none. I tried to hide small smushed up bits of carrots in his applesauce one day, and he actually threw up. Not spit up - threw up - everything that he had already eaten. It was a great tactic to deter me from trying any further sneaky ideas.



As I said, William likes what he likes. And he likes Cheerios. He went into the pantry, got out the Cheerios, and brought them to me saying "Na na" which is is "word" for "I want this" or "I want more". Yay for communication!! I'm getting really excited for the next steps in talking. William doesn't say many words yet, but we are so close, I can just feel it. By 15 months, Lily had over 20 words in her vocabulary. William is not even going to be close to that, but that's just fine because he communicates in his own way. Plus, I know the "naming explosion" is just around the corner (usually around 18 months), and by 2, he'll probably be talking up a storm (which does not feel that far away).

William is so quick to destroy any space that he enters and has a pension for getting into things that he should not. The pantry often is a prime target for his destructive ways. As you can see, he is loading up on marshmallows before he gets caught. Naughty boy. He also decided to try the dishwasher detergent the other day which prompted both a call to poison control and relocation of this and other items.


More sneaking and destruction

Climbing is the ultimate activity for this little guy. He loves, loves, loves to climb. Here he is, of course, trying to climb through the window into the kitchen (a vestige from before the addition of the hearth room).

William has also learned to move the step stool so that he can reach things that were thought to be out-of-reach.

His climbing knows no bounds, and you can see why he must be watched like a hawk.

More climbing. William has stood on the built-in seat before. Slippery when wet? William laughs in the face of danger.

One of William's favorite toys is actually Lily's toy. Lily received a Strawberry Shortcake remote-controlled car for her birthday, and William adores it. He also loves his big blue ball. He, of course, enjoys putting things in any container and dumping them out. He also plays with the play instruments quite a bit, loves pushing things like trucks, cars and trains, riding on his Radio Flyer fire engine, and tries to get on the bike every time we are in the garage (c'mon Spring!). He really likes the tunnel he received from meema for his birthday as well. He truly loves to be active and play the day away. He has, however, just gotten into reading books. He received a book from Santa called Beep! Beep! Peekaboo! that he wants to read over and over again. Other favorites include Pat Them Gently, Peek a Who, and Farm Animals. He brings me many, many books to read, but normally we only get through a couple pages before he tires of them. I'm really enjoying sharing this activity with him though, and Lily has gotten a kick out of revisiting some of her old board books.

William has quickly figured out how many things work. He generally gets the idea that you put the phone up to your ear, brush your hair with a hairbrush, and glasses go on your eyes. However, he puts all these things to the back to his head when he is playing which cracks me up.

William has also figured out how to go up and down the stairs while stilling standing (by holding onto the banister) and how to get on and off the couch.

Another mechanical thing William has figured out is his nighttime aquarium. When William wakes up, he turns it on and will happily listen to it for quite some time. (He very rarely cries when he wakes up unlike our little Lily when she was a baby.) When I come into the room to get him, the first thing he does is turn it off before I pick him up. What a precious little energy-saving boy!

Of course, he has to clap for himself when he turns it off. Actually, William can quite frequently be found saying, "Yay!" and clapping for himself throughout the day. We feel the same way, little one.

Lily and Terra

This is my favorite current picture of Lily. She's waiting outside William's bedroom door for him to wake up in the morning. I mean really.

And this is my current favorite of Terra. She fell asleep with the raw hide still in her mouth. Sweet dreams, pup.

3rd Annual Children's New Year's Eve Party

We had yet another successful countdown to noon children's NYE party. This is by far my favorite party to host, and this year, Carl even got to attend along with a few other dads - whoo hoo!

Molly oversees the food station. As the president of Washington University's Medical Center Hospital Auxiliary, she can be trusted with such things.

Party-goers chatting away

More socializing


We went back to our original international theme this year. Here, Lily, Andrew, Michiyo, and Hiro are making some maracas (Ghana).

The kid crew in the dining room works on making fancy letters for their parents (a tradition from Belgium) and gold jewelry (Chile).

Mary tackles the Chinese lantern.

We also displayed symbols of good luck (bamboo and a pine branch) from Japan.

Almost all the party-goers, minus Ingrid and Ryan (who left earlier) and a few dads who were too shy to be in the picture (we'll get 'em next year). I love the fact that I have been friends with 8 of the people pictured for over 15 years.

The countdown!

We put the kids to bed later that night, and Carl made an awesome steak and lobster dinner for the two of us. It was delicious, delicious, delicious. We celebrated midnight East Coast Time and were sound asleep for New Years in Central Time. :)