Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

I love the name, too: hat-throwing fungus.

In the past few weeks Nathaniel’s been reminding me of someone, but until yesterday I couldn’t make the connection.  Finally, I realized that he was the Bubble Trouble Baby!

It’s the stripes.  And the expression of helplessness as the baby floats high and higher in his bubble.  We see that a lot as Nathaniel floats on his pillow, waving his arms and hoping to be rescued.

And it seems fitting that the baby’s older sister gets him into this trouble: “Little Mabel blew a bubble, and it caused a lot of trouble . . .”  Katherine getting into trouble?  Surely not.  But her hair does the same little curl where it touches her shoulders.

You’ll be glad to know that the story ends well, with Mabel helping to rescue her brother.  We’ll hope that our family has a similarly happy ending.

Katherine has only mastered a few words and we’re already having to work hard to talk over her head.  She picks up on certain words that she overhears–and then doesn’t let go of them.  The word “bread” has been stricken from our language, to be replaced by “The Forbidden Food,” since she loves bread above all other foods and will clamor for it unceasingly.  Also troublesome are “walk” “park” “eat” and “apple.”  If you say the word, she seems to think you have to provide it, immediately.  So, instead of holding lengthy philosophical discussions, Sydney and I find ourselves spelling out four- and five-letter words.  Here’s hoping it’s not a permanent regression.

Erin

Sydney and I had hoped to attend some of the magnificent Easter concerts coming up in Oxford, since this is nothing if not a place for good music.  But, good a baby as Nathaniel is, I shied away from handing him over to a babysitter so early, particularly since we would need to do so with a babysitter we’ve never used before.  So, instead, I’ll be going to a performance on Saturday afternoon and and Sydney will go to another concert later that evening.  It’s sort of like a date night, taken in turns.

Since the kids have been shorting us on sleep the last week or so, Sydney and I have found ourselves making a few mistakes around the house.  Cooking has been successful, but . . . interesting.  Another reason why I’m glad we don’t have to drive anywhere!  This morning I set off at 7:30 for the hospital to take Nathaniel in for a routine check-up.  Thanks to his waking schedule I was up early, dressed, and heading out in plenty of time.  Unfortunately, I walked two miles to the wrong hospital; I didn’t know that there was more than one hospital in town, and I had failed to look at my notes about the journey before starting out.  Can we say autopilot?  Thankfully, a hospital nurse was very kind, called the other place to let them know I was running late, and printed me out Google directions.  I walked another mile to the other hospital, and, deciding that Nathaniel had had plenty of backpack time by that point, overcame my disinclinations enough to call a taxi for the ride home.  I think there will be a nap for Mama in the near future . . .

Erin

Two years ago today we became parents.  In the past two months we’ve been reminded of how different things have been since then.  Nathaniel gets the benefit of having experienced parents (this time I didn’t cry when trying to change the baby’s diaper for the first time), and the disadvantage of having experienced parents (two years of deep-seated fatigue).  Since Nathaniel was born Katherine has taken advantage of our distraction to go through a serious growth spurt.  I had hoped that there was some point to her sudden increase in appetite, and it’s suddenly appeared, in longer legs and arms and more coordinated walking and running.

We celebrated two years of Katherine with the outing to Blenheim to Friday and the slow doling out of a couple of musical toys (bells, a xylophone) over the last few days.  She’s suddenly gotten interested in the kids’ songs I’ve been singing around the house, so we thought we’d try to encourage her interest.  No drums, though!

Our little adventurer, conquering the world one manicured park at a time.

Erin

On my teabag: “No one can put you into a prison other than yourself.”

I guess that’s what I get for drinking something called “Yogi tea.”

Erin

All of the pictures from yesterday are of Katherine because 1) She was mobile 2) we didn’t spend all day shielding her from getting too much sun and 3) she wasn’t sleeping (see Point 1).  But Nathaniel also had a very good day out.  While Katherine was riding high on the top of the stroller he was nicely tucked beneath, sleeping and enjoying the fresh air that passed over his bed.  He really seemed to prefer a bit of movement, so I kept the stroller moving and he swayed gently back and forth.  And I could use him as an excuse anytime Sydney accused me of running ahead.

At 7 1/2 weeks he is becoming a lot of fun.  He’s big enough to make it difficult for me to remember that he isn’t even two months old–which means I forget that he might still want to eat every 1 1/2 hours or so.  This past week he started sleeping for longer and longer periods of time at night, so that I had four-to-six hour stretches each night for most nights of the week.  That means he is, technically, sleeping through the night.  And I am feeling better and having a lot fewer headaches as a result.  He makes wonderful cooing noises and really prefers to sleep propped up on a pillow.  And when he’s fussy his father is the one who most easily makes him happy again.

Erin

We went walking on the Blenheim estate again today. It was the most gorgeous day imaginable: perfect temperature (18 degrees C), not a hint of a cloud anywhere, with just the lightest of north breezes bringing nice, dry air.

Katherine was introduced to dandelion flowers:

The estate is peppered with pheasants, showing off magnificently in the sun:

Initially, Katherine thought riding the stroller was the preferable way to travel, but eventually she warmed to walking herself:

Sadly, the winter months have given Katherine the idea that one must wear shoes outside (also note the coat in most of the photos) and so when we took hers off she promptly sought refuge and adamantly refused to let her feet touch the grass. She seemed quite convinced that the grass would be the end of her. Dada has firmly resolved to address this matter in the upcoming weeks.

Katherine did, however, very much enjoy bouncing on a branch with the help of Mama:

I find the structure of English trees fascinating. I don’t quite know why they have such large, knobby trunks relative to the size of the trees:

By the end of our stay, when Katherine should have been two hours into her afternoon nap and you might have thought she’d want to rest in the stroller, she not only wanted to walk, she insisted on pushing the stroller with her brother in it:

But, after weeks of putting up a huge fight every time she needed to go to bed, today I got Katherine in bed for the night with minimal protest. After a day out. Entirely skipping her daytime nap. And an hour after her normal bedtime.

My favorite part of the day is when I hear Katherine haul out with a new word.  She does it so slyly that it always catches me off-guard.  It happens a lot, too, particularly since Sydney and I often take turns with her, and thus she’s busy being influenced by him while I’m not looking.  Which is why “magpie” and “owl” have entered her vocabulary . . .

Most recently it’s “blue.”  It’s the only color she can name, and it seems to be her favorite, since she often pulls out the blue duck or a blue block, and she now requests blue diapers (of which I only have two, so we do a lot of negotiating).

My other favorite part of the day is hearing her use a relatively new word in front of Sydney for the first time.  Then I get to watch him get caught by surprise 🙂

Erin