Seth is Seven Months Old (a day late!)

I totally spaced Seth's seven-month birthday on Saturday! But one day late isn't too bad. We spent lots of time at home this weekend, since both boys have pretty bad colds. Seth has an ear infection again so he's not sleeping very well. (Which means I'm not sleeping very well.) But despite being sick, he's been his normal, happy self. William's nose is a faucet again, and both boys have a congested cough. But if this is the worst of it, then we're pretty lucky. Seth actually threw up three times on Friday night, but I think it was because I gave him his antibiotic on an empty stomach. He hasn't thrown up again, thank goodness. William never threw up that young, so it was definitely a new experience and one I'd like to not repeat.

Anyway, Seth has been working on getting more mobile. He pushes up on his hands a lot and tries to pull up on things. He pushes himself backwards, and still rolls when he wants to get to something. He reaches out for me all the time now for me to pick him up. He'll play by himself happily until he sees me, and then he'll pitch a fit until I come pick him up. He loves to eat and has decided that fruits are way more tasty than veggies--especially green veggies. He's not too keen on Cheerios yet but he likes to gum on Zwieback toast. No teeth yet, but he drools like a mad man. He still loves his brother and is happy to watch William wherever he goes. He's still a terrible sleeper, but I have faith that there's a good sleeper in there somewhere. Above all, he's a delightful baby and fills our house with love.

Here are today's chair pictures. Both boys were still in their PJs, and Seth's nose was totally goopy. But the pictures are still cute.


Happy seven months, Sethy. We love you!

Imagination

I stayed home with the boys today since Seth has some kind of stomach bug. He's also caught a cold and had a bit of a cough today. William's nose has been a little runny, but otherwise he's been fine. Anyway, today I really enjoyed watching William play. His imagination has really taken off lately. Here are just a few examples of his day:

He used my car keys as a jack hammer with his play dough.

He put his play dough on the floor and stood on top of it and called it his skateboard.

He pulled my kitchen tongs out the drawer and pretended he was a crane and used them to pick things up all over the house.

He pretended that some thin wooden dowels were fire hoses.

He found a clear plastic bag with a handle (originally packaging for some toy or other) and pretended it was his briefcase. He packed it with toys and said, "G-bye ev-wee-body. I go to work now!"He even came and gave me a kiss and a hug.

This is such a great age, despite the discipline challenges. He was having such a good time today that I let a few rules slide (like keeping play dough on the table). Far be it from me to stifle his creativity!

I also got some great pictures of Seth today, and a cute video. I tried to get pictures of William, and of both the boys together, but that didn't work too well. So for now, here's Seth!


Here's the video. (And in case you're worried, my socks were fresh out of the drawer!)

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Brotherly Love

I didn't realize it had been so long since I last posted. I've been drafting this post for three days now, so I guess I should just go ahead and post it already. I was hoping to get a great picture to add to it, but that didn't happen. Anyway, William and Seth have been so cute together lately, especially in the car. Seth almost always falls asleep in the car, and when he wakes up, the first thing he usually sees is William, and he just grins ear to ear as soon as he sees him. William will grin back at Seth and giggle, and then Seth will giggle, and then William will belly laugh and Seth will belly laugh. Seth adores the attention and William loves making Seth laugh. I'm glad that for now, the car seats side-by-side are still working. I figure that some day, we'll have to separate them, but hopefully that won't be for a long time.

At home, Seth will play happily by himself, as long as William is nearby and he can watch William play. The minute William walks out of the room, though, Seth will start to fuss and cry. We usually try to convince William to play with his toys in front of Seth. Sometimes he cooperates, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes, he will get some books and "read" to Seth, which is one of the most heart-warming sights ever. Of course, much of the time, William is horsing around and experimenting with how much he can touch/push/sit on Seth before either Seth starts crying, or I get mad. Seth is pretty tolerant, though, and I end up looking like a fool when I'm telling William that Seth's going to get hurt, and Seth's over there laughing. I've been trying to adjust my reactions, and not get quite so upset at William's testing. If William hurts Seth, he gets an immediate time out. If he's pushing it and won't stop, I remove Seth and go into a different room. A few times when William has hurt Seth, I've flown off the handle a bit, and that is just not good for anybody. It's a work in progress, that's for sure!

A few other things I wanted to mention. First of all, Seth is now experiencing separation anxiety. He cries when I walk away from him, and he cries if someone else is holding him and he sees me. This is a really annoying phase! He's starting to pull up on things, too--well, he's trying to pull up on things. He's still rolling around as his primary means of mobility. And he loves a box or bucket full of toys. If you put a few toys on the floor in front of him, that's okay, but doesn't hold his attention for very long. If you put those toys in a bucket, he's engrossed.

William has been a total chatter box in the car on the way to and from daycare. I want to bring a digital recorder in the car one of these days so I can capture our conversations. They usually go something like,

William: "There's an excavator, Mommy! What that excavator doin' Mommy?"
Me: "The workers are driving it to the construction site, William."
William: "Where's the constwuction site, Mommy? Can I see it?"
Me: "I don't know where it is. I think it's over there. We can't go there today."
William: "I wanna dwive the digger, Mommy! Can I dwive it?"
Me: "When you're a grown-up you can drive the digger."
William: "Yeah, I be a grown-up and dwive the digger, Mommy! I need the keys!"
"What's dat car doin' Mommy?"
Me: "I don't know William. What do you think it's doing?"
William: "Dat car go to work, Mommy. You go to work, Mommy?"
Me: "Yep, I'm going to work. And you're going to school."
William: "Sef go to school Mommy? Where's Miss Tanga, Mommy?" (Ms. Tangela is Seth's teacher.)
Me: "Miss Tangela is at school. Yep--Seth's going to school, too."

And on and on and on. Sometimes it is sooooo draining. But it is also so gratifying, because I feel like we're finally spending quality time together on our long commutes. So between that and the boys sharing giggles in the back seat, going to and from work has not been too bad. I'll take what I can get!

Playground Bully

I had the day off for Veterans' Day and got to stay home with the boys. We had a nice day--nothing too exciting. We went to the playground this afternoon and William was having fun following an older girl around and showing off for her. (She was almost four.) Then 4 older boys came onto the playground and William followed them as they climbed onto the equipment (what the heck do you call the playground thingys? Very large climbing apparatuses with slides?). I was talking to the girl's mother and had Seth in the Ergo so only had half an eye on William, but I looked up in time to see an older boy (he was probably four) push William down! William was so upset and immediately started crying. The boy ran off. The boys' mothers were on the other side of the playground, of course, not paying a bit of attention to their kids. I didn't even have a chance to yell at the kid because he ran off after the other boys. I quickly got to William and held him as he cried.

He wasn't physically hurt, but you could tell his feelings had been really hurt. It broke my heart. William loves big kids and he's so shy and he was just watching the kids, not even trying to talk to them, and he gets shoved. Poor guy. I asked him if he wanted to go tell the kid that it wasn't nice to knock people down, but he declined. At first he wanted to go home, but then he decided he wanted to play on the other side of the playground. He calmed down pretty quickly and seemed to get over it. He told Daddy about it later tonight. Ed told him if someone shoves him, he should shove them back. *Sigh* I know the "right" thing to do is to try to empower him with words. But I want him to stick up for himself and not let people push him around. Ed says it's better for William to get in trouble by hitting or pushing back than to be a wuss. I see his point. It's one of those fine lines of parenting. It's always a balancing act.

This morning, before the whole playground incident. we went to K-Mart to exchange some toys that mom had gotten for the boys. When we walked in, the Christmas trees and yard ornaments were on display and the boys were mesmerized. William loved the moving reindeer and rotating trees with ornaments, and all the tsotchkes that sing and dance to Christmas carols. After walking up and down the Christmas aisles, we made it to the toy section and spent a good half hour in the truck aisle. William played with as many trucks and diggers as he could, and then explored some of the other aisles. I was picking up cars and trucks and diggers in our price range and asking him if he wanted to bring them home, and he kept saying "no." We picked out a toy for Seth, but he still didn't see something he wanted. (He did find a few elaborate trucks and motorcycles that he liked, but they were out of our price range.) Finally, he said, "Where's Christmas?" (He doesn't quite get the concept of Christmas and refers to Christmas like it's a person.) So we went back to the Christmas aisles and he picked out a really cheesy snow globe that plays 11 different Christmas carols and spins the "snow" around the snowmen. Both he and Seth love it. I was happy to get it, because it reminded me of all the Christmas decorations that I loved as a kid, as cheesy as they were.

I'm also happy because William loves Christmas songs! I've been singing them on our way to and from work and I can't wait to get my Christmas carols playlist downloaded to my iPod. (As soon as I find my iPod!) I may have to break my no-Christmas-music-before-Thanksgiving rule this year.

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin

Seth has taken up the sport of rolling and is pursuing it with gusto. This morning he rolled himself right under our bed and then was quite put-out to find himself there. It cracks me up. He seems to really enjoy rolling, though. William never rolled. He started the army crawl at this age and then finally crawled at 10 months. Seth is trying to get his knees under him, but hasn't quite mastered that. We'll see how far the rolling takes him.

I'm still struggling a bit to get through our daily routine. We seem to be getting home later, maybe because traffic has gotten worse. Or maybe it's taking me longer to get the kids checked out of daycare. I've not been doing a great job with making dinner that we can all eat together. Ed's been getting home after 6:30 p.m. anyway, so it's just been easier to wing it. But William hasn't been too keen on sitting at the table to eat, lately, and he does much better if we all sit down and eat together. I think William is having some kind of growth spurt, or maybe he just got over a growth spurt. He's not eating now, but sleeping a lot. On Saturday, he took a 3-hour nap, and today, he slept for 2 hours.

William has had a snotty nose all week, and he's had some tight-sounding coughing now and then. But it hasn't gotten any worse than that. An intestinal bug was going around in Seth's class and Seth seems to have caught it. He had really loose poops all weekend. But he's been fine otherwise. It seems like at the new daycare, the boys are still getting sick as often, but they're not getting as sick. I did notice tonight, though, after Seth's bath, that his nose was a tiny bit runny. On Wednesday, he has an appointment to get his shots and follow-up on his ear infection. So hopefully we can get through that.

I'm reading 1-2-3 Magic right now. I haven't gotten very far into it, but the major premise makes a lot of sense. The books says that the two biggest disciplining mistakes parents make are talking too much, and getting too emotional. Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! This is exactly what Ed and I both do when we're frustrated with William. I either talk and talk and talk, trying to persuade him to follow my logic. Or I get super angry and lose my temper or yell. Ed is also a short-fuse yeller. Soooo not good and not effective. The book talks about how kids feel powerless and they don't like feeling that way, and when they see that they can evoke such strong emotions (i.e. anger) from their parents, they like the power that it gives them. So the key to discipline is to show NO emotion. There is a clear consequence to an action, and the consequence gets implemented with no talking and no emotion.

One of our big issues right now is that William will get too rough with Seth. He'll push him over or play too rough or sometimes even get too excited when we're playing and he'll hit Seth. He's never done that out of anger. It's usually just when he gets over-excited or when he sees me playing with Seth and he wants to join in. He really doesn't understand the concept of hurting Seth, although he absolutely knows it's wrong to hit, and I've told him a hundred times not to touch Seth's head. Part of the problem is, half the time, even if he knocks Seth over, Seth will laugh and not actually get hurt. So then William can't figure out what the problem is. I have noticed, though, that silence speaks volumes and William gets it when I give him a look and don't say anything. The no emotion part is really hard, though. I didn't realize that I have a short fuse. I always thought I was laid back! Not so much. Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to give more feedback about the book in a few weeks. I want Ed to read it so we can both implement the technique together. The hard part is figuring out what behavior warrants what consequences.

We had a good weekend. Saturday was filled with cleaning and the house and playing outside while Ed changed the oil and filters in the cars and raked the leaves. Today we went to the zoo and had a great time. We saw the panda, elephants, tigers, gorillas, snakes, lizards, and orangutans. We saw the elephant pee and poop, and that was a big hit! He liked the gorillas the best, and kept calling them his "cousins" after Ed told him they're our cousins. LOL. All in all, it was a very nice day. Both boys fell asleep in the car on the way home and William went into his bed when we got home and slept for two more hours. Seth woke up and nursed and then we both took a little nap, so that was nice! After William woke up, we all went to the grocery store together, which is a very rare thing!

Things at work are still a little crazy, especially with three undecided Senate races. It looks like the Minnesota race could remain undecided for months. It might even be a case that ultimately gets decided by the Senate. Back in the '70s, the closest Senate race ever occurred in New Hampshire. The initial tally favored the Republican, but a recount gave it to the Democrat by 10 votes. The Republican challenged this, though, and the state ballot commission recounted the disputed votes again and gave the election to the Republican by 2 votes. The Democrat then petitioned the Senate to review the case in January (more than two months after the election). The Rules Committee deadlocked, and the case went to the full Senate. The full Senate sent it back to the Rules Committee, which then sent it back to the full Senate. The Senate debated the issue for six weeks before the candidates agreed to have a new election. The Senate declared the seat vacant and the governor appointed someone to fill the seat until the election could take place. In the new election, held on September 16, 1975, almost one year after the original election, the Democrat won decisively. So there's your Senate history lesson for the day. I'm hoping the current Senate races won't be quite as complicated or dramatic!

Awesome!

Did You?

Happy Halloween

Okay--I'm a day late. But what can I say--we've been busy!

William had a great Halloween and enjoyed hanging with the neighborhood "big kids" (the four year olds) and trick-or-treating. He was excited to get candy and I thought he'd want to eat it as he got it, but I guess it didn't occur to him until he got home. He got scared when he saw other kids (and adults) in costumes with masks, but otherwise, he seemed impressed with other costumes. His costume ended up being a little on the minimalist side. He started off as Bob the Builder but ended up as a regular 'ole construction worker. I'm glad I didn't shell out the big bucks for a more elaborate costume, though, as he was totally uninterested in what he was wearing, and probably would not have been down with dressing up more. So without further ado, pictures! First, we carved the pumpkin on Thursday:

Checking out what's inside the pumpkin:



Helping me draw the face. William wanted a happy face, not a scary face!


The finished product:


Hamming it up in costume:


Ready to go!
Trick or treat!

We ended the night with a lollipop and only went to bed about half an hour later than usual. And since most of William's candy was chocolate that he can't eat because of his peanut allergy, Ed and I got to ransack the loot. Yum! For now, William is perfectly content with lollipops and sweet tarts and starbursts and skittles.