Happy new year, everyone! We are slowly, slowly recovering from the holiday debauchery. Most of us are over our various illnesses. Holiday decorations are now making their way back into their storage areas. Piece-by-piece, we’re finding homes for all the kids’ new toys, puzzles, and books. I’m working on restocking the fridge with fruits and veggies so we can have nutritious choices at mealtime. Insurance should be covering the damage to the rental car. Wait, what?

Ornament? What ornament?

Our holidays were going pretty well before we started driving. We managed to get the kids down to Mozart’s to have some hot chocolate and see their fantastic light show. If you’re in Austin and looking to take the kiddos out for a low-stress outing, this is a good one. The Trail of Lights is an institution, but with a 1 year old and a 3 year old, we just weren’t up for it this year.

Deep thoughts during the holidays

We decided to take the kids to see Santa. Maya missed out last year (hospital, NICU, bleh), and we wanted to get some cute photos. We visited him at the Bass Pro Shop of all places. Not that we have a ton of comparative experience, but their setup seemed pretty nice. We spent maybe 30-45 minutes in line. Mostly I stood there while Sean ferried the kids about the store to keep them occupied, so it wasn’t so bad. The place is crazy huge. There are RC cars and trucks to play with, a little train set to watch, fish tanks to examine, a bowling alley. Not to mention the restaurant. The folks working there were all friendly and genuinely tried to get good, happy photos with the kids.

We had worked with Maya a little bit before going, explaining that you told Santa the things you might want for Christmas. She did a great job. She willingly sat on his lap, played with his beard a little bit … and calmly asked him for an octopus … please. I’m not sure Santa knew quite what to make of that, but it made her happy. Ian was kind of tired, so he mostly just sat there.

Santa!!!

We wedged in a first birthday celebration for Ian on the 19th (more on that later hopefully) and then packed on the 20th for the drive up to Dallas to spend the holidays with Sean’s side of the family and then later to Missouri to see mine. Luckily Lolli and Pop were at the house and could watch the kids while we loaded up the car, otherwise we might never have left!

Other than some scheduling issues with the kids, the Dallas part of the trip was reasonably uneventful. The cousins played together, everyone opened gifts, Maya had fun sleeping in the big hotel bed and riding around in the minivan.

Toward the end of our stay, we had learned that my dad was sick and we were dithering over whether or not to drive to Missouri, but we decided to go for it. The morning we were to start our long drive, we went into Maya’s part of our hotel room to get her going for the day and found that the poor girl was coated in vomit. She explained to us that she had to turn her pillow over (to the non-vomit side, so she could finish sleeping). That kid is awesome. Every once in a while, Maya overindulges in some kind of food, and we thought maybe that’s what had happened this time.

The only way we could get her to smile was to feed her candy cane

After an extra shower and devising storage solutions for now-stinky items, we got a late start out of town. Around lunch time, we were disabused of the notion that the barfing was an overindulgence issue. Maya, ever the trooper, had (mostly) vomited in her little barf bucket (thanks Aunt Darci!) and was ready to go into the restaurant we had stopped at. Except surprise! She barfed in the restaurant too, all over the floor. We were definitely their favorite customers that day.

She threw up one more time during our car trip, and told us several times that we were never going to make it to Missouri. Neither of the kids had been on a car trip quite that long before.

Once in Missouri, her stomach seemed to settle pretty well. She was playing with her grandparents and cousins, nibbling at food, and having a good time, so we thought it was probably just a little 24-hour thing. WRONG AGAIN! For our return journey, Our plan had been to drive to Dallas on Sunday and then to Austin on Monday. Saturday evening, just as the family holiday festivities were winding down, Maya threw up what seemed like most of her food for the evening. Then around 1a on Sunday morning (the morning we were to leave for Dallas), poor Maya woke up vomiting again. It was awful. That’s how she spent her next hour. And of course, Ian woke up too. Maya was freaking out about making a mess of her “wittle bitty be-ed,” and Ian was screaming for all he was worth. We finally got everyone sort of simmered down around 3a, and made the decision to drive all the way to Austin right away on Sunday so we could take Maya to see our regular doctor on Monday.

Ordinarily, that drive takes about 12 hours. With our various stops and slow-downs it took 14. With the kids, that’s actually not a terrible mark-up, but that trip can only be described as terrible. Maya managed to keep some gatorade, cheerios, and crackers down throughout the car trip. We even got brave at dinner time and let her have a few of her beloved french fries. Ian was sick, sick, sick of that car seat by the time we even started the drive. He only had two real modes for that journey: angry or asleep.

The real trouble was the weather. It rained pretty much for the entire 14 hours. Seeing how parts of Missouri look right now with the catastrophic flooding, I realize we got off light. The rain wasn’t even so bad for a while. Our fortunes turned around Prescott, Arkansas. We received EAS alerts on our phones for a tornado warning in the area while we were parked at a gas station. After doing a bit of examining radar and seeing the condition of this particular gas station, we decided to carry on. Not long after that, the hail started. Growing up in the midwest and living in Texas, I’ve seen plenty of hail, but nothing like this. When I say it looked at least baseball sized, I’m not exaggerating. There was no gentle lead-up; there were only intermittent giant thunks on the roof of our rental car, causing the adults to instinctively duck and Maya to laugh (who knows – I was just glad she wasn’t scared). We found an overpass to hide under as quickly as we could, but the damage was done: a couple of good-sized dents in our front hood and one broken windshield. The hailstone actually hit at the junction of the car’s body and the windshield and dented both of them substantially. It was scary, I’m not too proud to say.

The adults in the car were visibly rattled as we continued on our drive, the rest of which was marred by near zero-visibility torrents of rain and occasional weather-induced traffic slow-downs. Because things were so crummy, Sean actually never let me have a turn driving. He drove the entire 14-hour trip. Needless to say, his nerves were frayed and his brain was putty by the time we got home around 11 o’clock that night.

Ian, who had slept for most of the trip only wanted to play when we got to the house. Maya, who had kept her food down all day, requested water. Without even thinking about it, I gave her a glass full of water. She proceeded to chug said water and then vomited enormously all over the hall by her room, and the bathroom too, of course. It was well past 1a before everyone was cleaned up and settled in for a short night’s sleep.

Despite all of that, it was really great to see our families for the holidays. Despite illnesses and holiday-related chaos, spirits were generally high. Everyone was unspeakably generous; we’ll need to add a room for all the kids’ toys and things. Maya and Ian enjoyed seeing everyone, especially their grandparents. We made it home in one dented piece.

As analogies go, it’s not overly inventive. Of course our house is sometimes like a zoo; we have a 10 month old, an almost 3 year old, and three ancient cats. I work, Sean works, and Anna juggles our crazy kids during the day. Sometimes it’s loud, and sometimes it’s smelly. And there’s nearly always something interesting to see. Sounds like the zoo to me.

It’s the only real photo we have of them together in their costumes!

It has been for at least two solid months that Maya has had her costume and Ian’s chosen. We let it bake for a couple weeks before we finally pulled the trigger, but we had their costumes purchased already several weeks ago (holy shit, we were ahead for a change). This year for Halloween, Maya was a giraffe, and Ian was an elephant.

Maya’s third Halloween!

We saw both of these creatures last month when we visited the Denver zoo (more on that soon, hopefully). And better still, we thought a fun souvenir for the kids would be a stuffed giraffe for Maya and a stuffed elephant for Ian. Maya of course is very into her stuffed giraffe (which has joined the crazy array of creatures that sleeps with her). Ian likes his elephant about as well as he likes anything else: briefly and with a bit of slobber.

Ian’s first Halloween!!

We thought that this year would be the first year that Maya would try trick-or-treating. We’ve been working on her off and on for the past week to say the magic words after she rings the doorbell (you know, trick-or-treat). She never would do it. Her fate was sealed today when Ian, who has lately come down with what seems like a bit of a cold, decided to short his nap by an hour. He was crabby and Maya wouldn’t say trick-or-treat, so we decided that maybe next year would be The Year.

We did get it together to go to our neighborhood’s block party. Another couple who lives on our street are probably about our age and just had their first baby in September. They hosted our block party. When Maya was 1.5 months, there’s no way in hell I was hosting anything. And here these fine folks were, hosting a party for our street.

The Hoot!

Our jack-o-lantern was again sort of non-traditional. Maya worked out that she wanted “a hoot,” which is to say an owl. Last year we had a cat. She and nanny Anna found a design they liked online. Anna drew it, I carved it, and Sean and Maya installed the candle. Maya watched the lit up jack-o-lantern on its opening night and exclaimed, “It’s candling!!!” I took a shot at letting Maya remove some pumpkin guts this year. She gingerly fingered one seed before dropping it and moving to playing with shiny, clean kitchen tools instead.

 

It’s been a little more than a year ago now that we took our last vacation as a family of three. I was pretty pregnant at that point, but we knew things wouldn’t be the same once the new kid showed up, so we thought we’d treat the original kid to some focused parent time while she could still get it. We had found inexpensive flights to Ft Lauderdale, and so we decided to spend a few days tooling around Miami.

Maya, not quite 2 years old

Funny aside: it really doesn’t work to shop for swim suits in September / October. This appears to be doubly true for maternity swim suits. I wound up purchasing the only suit that fit me in the only store I was willing to stop at.

Maya is funny. She and I occasionally play with some seashells she collected while on that vacation, so she hears me refer to Miami all the time. Since we’ve been working on this post, Sean and I have been discussing these photos and the things we did on that vacation. He looked at her recently and asked her if she’d like to go to Miami again. She gave him her best angry face and said she wanted to go to “Mommy’s-ami, not Daddy’s,” presumably because we found seashells at mine.

Maya and Mommy

We learned a lot on that trip. It was really our first time vacationing when our goal wasn’t to see family or mess around on the beach the entire time. We unintentionally fell back to our pre-kid version of trip planning, which involves getting a good jump on the day and packing in lots of activities. We knew we’d need to keep Maya entertained, so we had beach time and a visit to the Miami Seaquarium built in. But our list also included strolls around town, a list of restaurants to try out, and maybe even a boat trip if the weather held.

Yeah, we way, WAY overshot. Generally speaking, we were lucky if we were out of the apartment, breakfasted, and on to wherever we were going before 10a. And Maya was still taking a pretty solid afternoon nap, so our window for activities was pretty narrow.

Maya and Daddy

We had read that Key Biscayne was a good place to stay for families. We found a nice apartment via Homeaway and also rented a crib for Maya to sleep in. It worked out well enough. The drive from Ft Lauderdale was pretty quick. (Seriously, we saved hundreds of dollars by not flying directly into Miami, and it’s less than an hour car trip between the two.)

Our two difficulties were scheduling and meals. Given our slow start with Maya, we were generally having breakfast somewhere in Key Biscayne, and it just didn’t seem like there were too many breakfast options. We’d drive into Miami, putter around a little, have some lunch, putter a little more, and then head back for a nap. Our intention had been to head back into Miami after nap to do a little more sight seeing, but it just never worked out that way. More typically, we’d play on the beach a bit and then try to figure out where we were going to eat. And the places to eat where kinda swanky. We did reasonably well, in that all the food was really fantastic, but we definitely spent more than either of us thought we were going to.

Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne

We also experienced what will forever be known as The Miami Incident. Maya is a really good eater. Even now as a picky almost-three-year-old, she’ll usually try out whatever you’re offering. For instance, on this vacation, she ate a whole plate full of Indian food, a few bites of my grilled octopus, plantain fritters, fish, and who knows what else. She also discovered the wonders of fresh-squeezed orange juice.

We had stopped at a little restaurant by a gas station for breakfast, and each of us ordered orange juice with our food. Sean was holding Maya and letting her nibble on whatever he was eating. Then she got ahold of his juice. It was in a styrofoam cup, so we didn’t really see how much she was drinking, but whatever, it was cute. Of course she liked the wonderful fresh-squeezed orange juice. It was a lovely thing to wash down her breakfast empanada.

Miami

We took the toll road into Miami and were driving along the main drag enjoying how fantastically Miami everything looked. Sean was hunting for good parking, and I was in the back seat with Maya. She spat up a little bit, which is rare, but no big deal. I grabbed a burp cloth to wipe her up (yes, at nearly two years old, I still carried them around; they’re good for spill clean-up). And she just kept vomiting. She looked as startled as I felt. I tried to catch it in the burp cloth, but it was no use. The poor girl was basically sitting in a puddle of regurgitated orange juice.

Sean pulled us into the parking lot of a Walgreens and ran inside to procure cleaning supplies of some kind while I set about giving Maya a wet wipe bath and changing her clothes. He bought a couple jugs of water and some paper towels and did the best he could to de-barf the car seat. This sort of thing was so out of the ordinary for Maya that we actually thought she might be sick, so after all that craziness, we gave up on the day and drove back to our hotel.

Maya loved her beach ball

But wait, there’s more. Maya was crazy about balls, so we bought a package of beach balls to take on our trip. We blew one up, and true to form, she LOVED it. That’s all she wanted to play with. She’d toodle around the apartment rolling it around and laying on it. This very same day, she was playing in the apartment after her nap (yeah, not sick at all), and her ball got the best of her. She accidentally rolled forward on it and cracked her chin on the tile floor. She cut it open and of course it bled profusely. After a trip to the drug store (our second that day!), she was band-aided up and feeling a little better, but I think all of us were a little weary of our “vacation” at this point.

The Miami Seaquarium was neat, but not what we expected. There were some sea creatures in tanks and whatnot like you’d find at a traditional aquarium, but really the draw here seemed to be a series of shows instead. We saw dolphin shows, killer whale shows, sea lion shows. It was really neat, and when Maya was watching it, she seemed interested. Often she was messing around playing in the seats instead. She liked getting splashed because then she could lick delicious salt water off her face. But often, the movement between shows was what she really enjoyed. They had a playground there, and of course we let her play there a bit between shows.

Killer whale

Generally speaking, I remember the vacation fondly, and I think most of it has to do with our very simple time spent together playing on the beach. Also, till I looked through these photos, I didn’t realize just how much Maya has grown up in this past year. She’s leaned out and lengthened a lot. I love, love, love our silly, expressive, independent, almost three-year-old girl, but I do miss the pudgy almost two-year-old she was then. This was still in that sweet spot where she liked to be held, where she rolled with the punches a little better, where she was generally content. She still had her baby face and her baby body, at least a little. She still let Sean take her picture once in a while. These days, she’s much too busy for all that.

In July, we took what is seeming like our annual trip to visit family in Missouri and Alabama. This was the first time we had really traveled with the two kids beyond a quick trip to the Dallas-Ft Worth area. Let me just say, finagling luggage, two small kids, and two car seats is a feat in and of itself. Getting all of us through security was particularly interesting. I hear about single parents traveling like that, and I honestly have no idea how they manage.

Everything was okay in the airport. Maya generally climbed around on the seats or busied herself with the iPad. Ian watched people. Things didn’t get rough till we were on the airplane.

Maya got lots of grins as she walked through the airplane toward our seats, clutching Oddipuddy in one hand and her duck pillow in the other. She and Sean were sitting next to each other in one row, and Ian and I were sitting next to each other directly behind them. Maya was strapped in with a CARES system for the first time, which I think she liked because she felt like a big kid, and Ian was in his car seat.

It wasn’t long before Ian was yelling. As Sean says, Ian doesn’t suffer boredom well. We had just walked down a nice aisle full of people he could grin at, and then I stuffed him into his car seat, where he could barely even see out the window. Also, a reminder: that boy is loud.

My only hope was that takeoff would help soothe him to sleep. Sure enough, he fell asleep, but it didn’t last, and when he woke up, he was really unimpressed. I had packed along a nice bottle of milk for Ian so that he’d have something to help his ears on takeoff and landing. He should have been hungry, so I offered it to him. Nope. And bless his stubborn little heart, he never would take that bottle. He slept a tiny bit later in the flight, but generally, he was just angry and vocal.

Luckily for him, as soon as we landed, we had to get our luggage, take a shuttle to the rental car place, install two car seats into the rental car, and then drive a couple hours to my parents’ house. Poor guy.

Maya, once we were actually at Grammy and Grandpa’s house, quickly found the toys and could stretch her legs and unwind a little bit. Ian just had a really rough, rough bedtime.

Grandpa and Maya feeding fish

I was impressed with how quickly Maya warmed up. The very next day, she was already willing to play with Grandpa and walk to the pond with Grammy. She really loved going to that pond. There were sticks and rocks to mess with, a couple of piers to walk out on, and fish to feed.

Grammy and Ian

Ian, not surprisingly, loved all the undivided attention he received from his grandparents. He was mostly along for the ride when it came to activities, but he got lots of interaction with people, and that makes him a happy guy.

Sparkler!

We dickered around about showing Maya some fireworks last year. She’s particular about loud noises, and we didn’t want it to be one big unpleasant experience for her. This year, we were fortunate to have the ideal set-up. We all hung out on Grammy and Grandpa’s porch and watched as fireworks were launched from the yard below. If we needed to, escape would be as simple as heading inside and being distracted by toys. That wasn’t necessary though. Maya sat on my lap and let me hold my hands over her ears while she watched her first fireworks. She even got to throw some little poppers and hold a sparkler. Ian, of course, slept through the festivities.

Goat!

We also went to Lazy L Safari Park. It’s sort of a little mini-zoo that lets you pet and even feed many of the animals. One of Maya’s favorite activities was feeding the little parakeets from a popsicle stick coated with seeds. We walked into a cage full of birds with our seed-laden sticks and they’d flock to our arms to get to the seeds. She was on the fence about whether she really wanted the birds on her, but she very much enjoyed them being near her.

Our trip to Alabama was mostly uneventful. Ian again was screamy on the airplane and refused the bottle. I had room enough this time to breast feed him partway through the trip, though it really didn’t help much. Maya wound up falling down and busting open her lip on our way through the Birmingham airport. Again, by the time we got to Lolli and Pop’s house, Maya needed some time to unwind and play, and Ian really desperately needed to sleep.

One of the great things about Lolli and Pop’s house is that there are kitties. They have six cats living at their house, and Maya can now name all of them and tell you which ones might bite and which are safe to pet. Even months later, she still runs down the list from time to time. Ian also is a big, big fan of kitty cats. We spend no small amount of energy keeping him from unintentionally damaging them.

Maya the firefighter

One of the highlights of our trip was the McWane Science Center. Ian mostly hung out in the stroller and watched little kids running around, so he was pretty happy. Maya was in heaven. She dressed as a firefighter, played in a kitchen, messed with bubbles, pet a shark and a stingray, and dozens of other things I can’t clearly remember. She was very well occupied and did not want to leave when it was time to go.

Ian’s not too sure about the pool

We also got to visit the Homewood Pool. It’s like no other swimming pool that I’ve ever been to. There’s a shallow area with lots of splash-pad-esque sprinklers and showers and things. And there’s a giant whirlpool type thing that gently urges you along as you drift lazily around and around. Maya was in heaven. This was officially Ian’s first visit to the pool, and he was not immediately a fan. After three quarters of our pool visit was over, he finally relaxed a little. Until then though, it seemed like yet another torment he’d have to endure more so than actual fun.

Maya is SURE she likes the pool

To save a fair amount of cash, we drove the couple hours to Atlanta to catch a flight there back to Austin. Everything was going well enough, except that our flight wound up being several hours delayed. I was really impressed with the fact that Ian basically took his nap while hanging out at the airport instead of in the plane where I had hoped he’d sleep. But sure enough, after another long, loud flight, we finally made it home. Even with the travel drama, we had a great trip. Maya still talks about her visit with both sets of grandparents and the things she did while she was there.

Remember Ian in the NICU? Tiny Ian inside an isolette with leads attached to monitoring points, an IV in his arm, and a tube down his throat? Yeah, dude got over it. At his 9-month appointment last week, premie Ian weighed 22 pounds (85th percentile) and was 29 inches long (80th percentile). Yikes.

Ian – 8 months old

Given his size (and mine), breastfeeding him at this point is a pretty hilarious affair. I lay the top half of the baby more or less in my lap and the legs just dangle off to one side or the other, kicking and squirming away. Also he’s so much more alert now. If I try to feed him while we’re out, he has to stop often to look around, grin at me or random strangers, maybe yammer a baby word or two. I support and encourage public breastfeeding, and I do it routinely. However, I’m more than a little shy and self-conscious and prefer to limit the amount of time my nipple is exposed. Ian, naturally, is indifferent to my plight.

Ian – 8 months, Maya 2 3/4 years

We discovered that if you buy summer clothes at the end of summer, they can be had for a song. I had found the hat and linen shirt for Ian a while back but just couldn’t justify the cash outlay. In August, it turns out, everyone thinks summer is over (not in Texas, of course – I bet we still get a couple more weeks of summer even this late), so I was able to not only acquire the cute outfit, but get two different sized hats so I’d be sure to have one that fit him.

Maya with sticks, of course

I probably sound like a broken record, but any photos that were captured are a testament to Sean’s patience. Maya continues to shun the camera, and Ian’s moods shift with the breeze, so getting children that are both happy and in focus is something of a chore. Here they are in all their fedora-ed glory.

We’ve looked forward to feeding Ian as much as we had to feeding Maya two years ago, though this time there are fewer photos. Around four months old, we started. He had already been sitting at the table with us for a while and watched us intently as we ate. We were told we could wait till six months, but like Maya before him, Ian seemed interested enough that we started earlier.

Eating is FUN!

Again, I am making his food. My approach to his purees is not complex. I make a big batch of some pureed fruit or vegetable, and then freeze it in one-ounce servings. I store these one-ounce chunks in labeled zip-top bags and load up our freezer with them. I pull out whatever chunks I want for a given meal and microwave them. If they’re runnier than I want, I thicken them a bit with store-bought (iron-fortified) oatmeal cereal.

I tried giving him plain oatmeal cereal in breast milk exactly once before feeding him pureed apples. The cereal was a non-starter. The apples he loved. Ian is thus far not a big fan of green vegetables. He’s happy to eat sweet potatoes and butternut squash, but he’s ambivalent about green beans and zucchini and downright disgusted by peas.
One of Maya’s favorite things is to help get Ian’s meals together. She chooses whatever bowl he’s going to use and often selects which foods he will eat. Then she pulls the frozen servings out of the zip top bags and loads them into the bowl. I lift her up so she can push the buttons on the microwave to thaw the food. While it’s running, she fetches me the oatmeal cereal in case anything needs thickening. Once I get the heated food from the microwave and thicken as needed, she puts the oatmeal cereal back in the cabinet and takes the food in to Ian. She would really *like* to feed him. The compromise we’ve settled on is to let her feed him one bite with our help. Then she climbs into her chair and has her own dinner. So far, this arrangement is making everyone happy. This includes Ian; he is really fascinated by his big sister.

Thanks to the demands of two children, Ian’s food offerings have rolled out a little more slowly than Maya’s. Right now, in the freezer, we have apples, strawberries, peaches, blueberries, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, peas, zucchini, butternut squash, and green beans. I have some corn to puree for him. We tried him on some canned refried beans and he was unimpressed. Today I cooked him some lentils and mixed them with butternut squash and apricots to sweeten them (they were a hit).
Since Maya was a baby, the new advice is to introduce babies to allergens more quickly. We can already knock berries off the list. We’re about to take care of corn as well. On my to-do list for the next few months is wheat, citrus, dairy, egg, peanut, and fish.

We’ve tried to give Ian a few finger foods to mess with, but he doesn’t really care too much. He’s pretty happy to gum celery sticks. We bought some little rice cracker things that are designed to give them some practice eating something that doesn’t really demand any chewing of them. He’s happy to gnaw on it till a piece of it breaks off in his mouth. Then he makes faces and gags.
From some of the past photos we’ve posted, you can see that Ian has plumped up. Our six-weeks premature baby who weighed 5 lb 7 oz at birth weighed a whopping 19 lb at his six-month well check. The resources we’ve read warn not to progress to solids too quickly because babies should be getting most of their calories from breast milk or formula. In Ian’s case, I think we have some wiggle room on that.

Like most 2.5 year olds, Maya has developed an ornery streak. She’s defiant and stubborn and likes pointing it out when we deviate even one iota from what she knows to be the one correct way. She often doesn’t listen well and can try the patience of even the calmest person (which I’m not).

Maya – ~2.5 years old

Except often she does listen well. One day, she’ll just randomly pick up her toys when asked. Or before she wants a new toy, she’ll put the old one away without being asked. It’s amazing. Also, she balances her defiance with sweetness (and there’s part of me admires her defiance even as it’s driving me crazy). She’s so smart and has a silly sense of humor. I think having a little brother in the house is already paying dividends for her. At least with other babies, she’s very nice about bringing them toys and playing with them.

Maya – ~2.5 years old

Maya is really blossoming at her music class. She’s definitely a shy kid. If the crowd is too big, she folds in on herself. Her eyes sort of glaze over and while she allows you to shuffle her from one activity to the next, she shows very little self-motivation. In her music class lately, she’s been playing the instruments by herself, following along with some of the movements and gestures that accompany the songs, and has been more assertive about what she wants to do.

At home, the change is even more profound. She has a box of musical instruments – little drums and shakers and xylophones and whistles – that she’s becoming more proficient at using. But beyond that, for the past couple weeks she’s been singing most of her songs. We no longer get to sing to her at bedtime. Now we sit there and urge her along while she sings the songs.

One of the parents in the music class had really cute pants on her kid. We found out where they got them and in looking around that particular Etsy shop, we found some of the cutest kimono dresses. Maya has two of them now: the one in these photos and a red one with skulls on it that will show up in this year’s mother’s day photos once we get around to posting them.

Maya is still on her anti-photo streak. She doesn’t stand still for Sean at all anymore and even actively runs away from him when he has a camera in hand. It’s too bad really; she’s a lovely little subject to photograph.

I think the adjustment from one kid to two kids has been easier on us than the adjustment from zero to one. That said, because there are two, it’s clear that Ian is not getting quite the same degree of single-minded attention that Maya received. This is all too evident in the amount and types of photos we take of him. Maya had special outfits, nicely lit photo shoots, and a variety of ideas and themes. Poor Ian has, “Shit, he’s a week past five months old; we should really take five-month photos.”

Ian – 5 months old

At any rate, we’ve been attempting to at least get a few quick photos once a month so we can (theoretically) see how he develops throughout his first year. Below are some photos of Ian at 2, 4, and 5 months (we figured 3 months was covered by the bluebonnet photos).

In case it isn’t clear from these, Ian has filled out nicely. He goes to the doctor in a couple weeks for his 6-month appointment, and we’re very curious to see what his weight is.

Ian – 4 months old

Ian is generally a happy little guy. He can putter around on the floor and play on his activity mat for sometimes an hour at a time with very little interaction from us. If he’s feeling attention-starved though, he makes it known. His yelling is immense enough to fill the house with baby noise. He can easily out-holler Maya, no question. The kid is loud. A friend of ours kindly commented on his bright, clear voice, but we knew what she meant :-)

Ian – 2 months old

Like his sister as a baby, Ian is kind of lazy. He’s rolled over from his back to his belly a few times, but most of the time he seems to decide he’s just content wherever he is. Even now, he’s really not crazy about being on his stomach. The innocuously named “tummy time” is still not something he really enjoys. I’m all for letting him do what he wants for now, but the time may soon come for us to push him a little more. For that, we might need ear plugs.

Easter was early this year (and nearly two months ago at this point), but we still got it together enough to celebrate a bit with Maya. This year we even tried something new: dyeing hard boiled eggs.

Daddy showing Maya how it’s done.

We didn’t try anything fancy this year, just straight Paas dye on white boiled eggs. Maya seemed interested in the process of dyeing the eggs. She liked dropping the tablets in the cups and liked the different colored eggs that came out. She doesn’t always understand about doing things gently yet and cracked a few shells tossing the eggs in the dye cups instead of slowly lowering them. With Daddy’s help though, things went more smoothly.

Maya – ~28 months old

I may have made a tactical error. Because I didn’t want to waste the boiled eggs, I insisted on keeping them refrigerated. I should probably have allowed them to come to room temperature before taking them outside and hiding them though. The day was hot and the condensation that developed on the cold eggs helped transfer the dye to Maya’s basket, her dress, and her hands.

Hunting eggs

That very cute dress she’s wearing came from Lolli and Pop a while ago, and it only recently started to fit well. It took some pretty intense negotiating to get her to wear the dress on this particular day. Now that there are no easter photos on the line, she wants to wear her “beeg dwess” all the time.

Hunting eggs

Ian was too little to participate (he napped through the easter egg hunt), and once we got everything finished up, we didn’t really have the gumption to dress him up and take his photo. Second kid is getting the shaft already, poor guy.

What?

Maya, we discovered, can take down a Cadbury egg on her own and in very little time. As an easter treat, we let her have a whole one all to herself. She had it unwrapped and half eaten before we really knew what had happened.

Wow, it’s been a while since we’ve posted. It turns out that life with two kids is busier than with just one. Also, we had an illness sweep through the house leaving us all congested and miserable for several weeks. And then we had some sort of stomach virus sneak in and render half of us weak and barfy.

Maya in the bluebonnets – 28 months old

At any rate, a while back we managed to get both kids dressed up and out to a bluebonnet patch for the annual photos. Maya is still resistant to having her photo taken, and she’s downright appalled by the notion of holding her brother up while we take pictures of both of them, so regardless of how mind-blowingly adorable it would be to have them looking like they like each other for a photo, we’ll all have to settle for mild and fleeting tolerance instead.

I swear they actually like each other

It was a lightly windy day when we took these photos, and let me just tell you, Ian is not impressed with the wind. A breeze blows through and he waggles and gasps like it’s taking his breath away. Suffice it to say, we only managed to get a few photos of the boy where he’s not flailing or looking angry.

Ian in the bluebonnets – 3 1/2 months old

These photos were taken at the end of last month. Ian would have been around 3-3.5 months old. In real time, he’s about four and a half months old. At his last well check, he was in the 50th percentile for weight and the 25th percentile for height and hitting all his developmental milestones. His doctor commented that we were going to have a hard time convincing anyone that he had been born six weeks early. He’s still not sleeping through the night, though we have transitioned him to his own room. It’s probably a good idea, though we won’t be totally sold till we’re no longer trudging across the house to take care of him a couple times a night.

Maya’s doing really well. For a girl who probably didn’t say but maybe eight or ten words at her second birthday, you’d never know it. Her vocabulary is growing at an insane rate and her pronunciation is getting better all the time. Pronouns are still a little tricky (That’s bothering Maya. Maya running away! Maya **needs** a cookie.), but plurals and past tense are used correctly.

Maya hamming it up

Her mis-pronunciations are fantastic, and I’m really sad that they’re rapidly disappearing. Here are a few of our favorites:
oddenon = elephant
jawopp = giraffe
oddodaddo = caterpillar (she still says this one, but it too is fading fast)
hangenbangen = hamburger
stwawbee = strawberry
yeddo = yellow

Most of her Rs and Ls still come out as Ws. She misses the Ses at the beginning of words a lot of the time leading to some great phrasing. Recently she had a “cab on her cwape” (a scab on her scrape). She had been asking if she could have drinks of “Daddy’s hoda” but even that comes out sounding more like “Daddy’s soda” now.

Her hair is great in these photos, right? Totally not my doing. Inept mom confession number 46: I can’t do little girl hair. I can get a serviceable pony-tail in there and with a few barrettes to catch the stray hair, but that’s about it. We actually stopped by nanny Anna’s place and got her to put Maya’s hair up before we went out for photos. Thanks Anna!!

We’re getting ready to take our first long car trip with both the kids (driving to Dallas). That should be interesting. Maya’s pretty good at entertaining herself, and at least right now, the car generally puts Ian to sleep, so maybe it won’t be too bad. I bet our hotel neighbors are going to **love** us and our screaming baby at 3am.

We have a ton of photos we’d still like to post that are older than these. We have several sets from when I was still pregnant with Ian that would be fun to post. Hopefully, we’ll be able to work those in over the coming months.