Whack Brudder

In addition to his contrarian phase, AJ is also in a wonderful "whack brudder" phase in which he actually whacks, pushes and (my recent favorite) attemps to head butt his brother. This is all so horrifying and foreign to me that I am not sure what to do. My main response to date has been an immediate time out. I try coupling this with my sister's advice--"It's not okay to hit brother. Instead you can clap your hands/stomp your feet/punch the pillows on the couch." So far he likes punching the couch, but the brotherly whacks keep on coming. Our nanny reported to me that for the first time today, David whacked AJ back. I have (terrible) visions of two brothers whacking each other for the next 10 (or 17) years while I am stuck playing referee. Any advice? I won't lie, I am still harboring a hope (fantasy?) that they will be best friends.

The photos were taken by our family friend. Shortly after the last picture was taken, AJ whacked David, who started laughing. Our friend thought it resulted in a good picture and so egged AJ on a bit, which was all the encouragement he needed to provide David with a really good whack that resulted in tears and ended the photo shoot.

Davey Bear's 9 month update

It is impossible for me to believe David will be 9 months old this week. I was looking back at my posts when AJ was the same age and was surprised to see how much they look alike. In my mind, my blond-haired, green-eyed boy and my red-haired, blue-eyed boy look very different. But in the pictures, it is clear that they have the same teeth. There must be other similiarities, too, that I am missing because there is a certain je ne sais quoi about them that reminds me of each other.

For his part, David has become mobile in a big way. He is not crawling yet, but he can sit in one spot and paddle around with his feet in a 360 degree rotation in about 2 seconds flat. Definitely fast enough to swipe a forbidden handful of AJ's trains off the train table. Like AJ at this age, David's favorite toy is a cordless house phone with all of the buttons to boop boop beep beep. He is also into books with flaps that cover the pictures, especially one of babies hiding behind beach balls, umbrellas and blocks.

David has the biggest grin that lights up the room, and he flashes it all the time. We took him to have his pictures taken at our friend's photography studio, and the photographer could not get over how smiley he is. She said he does not take a bad picture. But smiley is not to be mistaken for easy going, because he has a stubborn streak to him and can be hard-headed. Every time I try to put him in the high chair, he stiffens his entire body, refuses to bend his legs, arches his back and throws his head back in protest. He is a selective eater, and I sense that some of it is due to power struggles and his need to assert his own will. After AJ's early career as a competitive eater, it is hard for me to relax about David's refusals to eat because I worry that he is not getting enough nutrients. Whenever I voice this concern, someone tells me that David clearly doesn't look like he is hurting in the food department. So far, David's hands-down favorite food is dry toast. He likes to eat things that he can feed (and therefore control) himself, like peas, pasta, diced up fruit and the toast. He does not drink much water out of his sippy cup, and AJ did more drinking from the cup at the same age. I think the big difference is that AJ never took a bottle and so went straight to the cup, while David is a fan of the ba-ba.

David is a bit of a daddy's boy, which I like to see. He lights up whenever Joe walks into a room and starts frantically kicking his legs and stretches out his arms to Joe to be scooped up. He is also a big fan of the cats and lunges toward them whenever they get within a body length of his reach. I have noticed that the cats are less willing to let the second little tail puller get near them. Maybe they are getting kid wise in their middle age.

The little things that I want to remember about David at this age are the way his hair curls just around the bottom of his head, his hilarious in-and-out fast laugh, the adoring glances he gives AJ, the way he spits his pacifier out--patooie--whenever he sees a bottle coming his direction and his contented sigh whenever I pick him up.

In terms of talking, David has been on a da-da-da-da kick in his babbling lately that leads me to think this will be his first word. I could also swear that he said "aah ja" this morning when he was looking at AJ. Our nanny thinks he has been saying AJ as well.

The pictures are of David at 9 and 4 months. Here is a link to AJ's nine month update for comparison.

The Contrarian

We have a new resident at our house, Mr. Contrarian. AJ is in the terrible twos phase where everything, and I mean everything gets a response of no. Or more accurately, NO! I don't wanna [insert whatever your suggestion was]." He is so busy asserting his power to say no that he doesn't have time to figure out what it is that he actually wants, which makes it difficult to get through even every day tasks. Common things like diaper changes inspire nuclear meltdowns. Today it was "No! I don't wanna take off my dirty diaper! I don't wanna throw it in the garbage! I don't wanna clean new diaper!" I tried the recommendation to give him a choice of two things, in this case a Big Bird diaper or a Cookie Monster diaper, but he no wanna either. So I tried for the well-you-had-a-chance-to-choose-my-friend-and-now-it-is-mama's-choice approach. And as he thrashed around and I tried to make him put on a diaper, I realized that he is starting to get to a size and strength where it is difficult for me to physically get him to do what I want when he is not cooperating. So I put him into his crib for a time out sans diaper and came back a few minutes later to hear him gleefully crowing "I peed on the wug! I peed on the wug!" and sure enough, the little spitfire had peed through the slats in his crib and scored a direct hit on the rug. I felt totally and completely outwitted. God help me when he is 16.

Just Making It Through

We survived last week, barely. Joe was out of town on business for much of the Great Daycare Experiment, and I was very fortunate to have the assistance of the boys' Chicago grandparents every morning with packing up for daycare and loading the boys into the van. Here is a brief summary:

Day 1: Wake the boys up early for "school" and get them packed in the car with little fussing. AJ is excited to wheel out to the car the new Elmo backpack that his Grandma Julie picked up for him. I nearly broke my back carrying David and all of the gear that he needed from the car to into the day care center--bottles, baby food, diapers, wipes, extra clothes, sunscreen, jacket, hat, etc. etc. At the end of the day, AJ's teacher told me he was a great addition to the class, which was nice to hear. The one down point was that he did not like having a stranger change his diaper and had refused a diaper change for a while, so he had an awful diaper rash. David's teacher said he was unable to nap in the crib by himself. The day care does not allow any blankets in the crib for liability reasons, and David needs his blanket near his face to fall asleep.
Day 2: AJ had a complete meltdown in the morning and wanted nothing to do with "going to school." I think it was a combination of the new routine, waking him up early in the morning and his utter exhaustion from the previous day. He normally gets to watch his half hour of tv in the morning while he lounges around the house in his PJs and leisurely eats his breakfast. The hurry! hurry! rush! rush! morning routine did not appeal to him. That night when we got home, he was screaming and sobbing as he wandered around the house, refusing to eat dinner and not wanting to be held or helped by anyone. It was a complete meltdown. He was obviously just exhausted, which made me think of my mom saying to me when I was a kid that I was just tired and would feel better after I had slept.
Day 3: We got stuck in bad traffic on the way to work and it took us an hour and 20 minutes to get to the day care center. I am so done with listening to AJ's Thomas the Train DVDs and miss my morning dose of NPR. Halfway there, AJ protested that he wanted to go back home and managed to wiggle out of one of his car seat straps, so I had to exit the tollway to get him secured again. On the plus side, David is napping for at least 20 minutes now in the crib at dayare and AJ has developed enough trust with one of his teachers to let her change his diaper.
Day 4: We had to get up extra early because I had a big conference call at 8:30 that I wanted to take from my desk. At 7:15 as we were cruising up the tollway, I heard the telltale sounds of stomach flu from the backseat. It was David, who had gotten sick all over himself, his blanket and his carseat. So much for that new minivan smell. Did I mention we bought a minivan a month ago? The daycare doesn't take sick kids. Conference call is cancelled. With our nanny out and Joe in New York, I have no other backup and have to call in sick.
Day 5: As I am waiting for the temp nanny from the agency to arrive, I check my cell phone and see she texted me the night before to ask if I still wanted her to come. Um...yes! I call her and she makes it to our place in 30 minutes, but I still have to cancel my first meeting of the day.

Lessons learned...packing up kids for daycare takes planning and lots of preparation the night before...work is more stressful when you are thinking about your kids and how they are functioning...always confirm the temp nanny the night before...and never let Joe go out of town again! (unless I get to go with him...)

The Great Daycare Experiment

As previously mentioned, our beloved nanny, Linda, is out for three weeks due to a death in the family and we are scrambling over here to hold it together without her. Grammy Julie has been gracious enough to be our flying granny nanny for two weekends in a row to pitch in. The first two weeks we were able to find a temporary nanny, but she is already booked for next week so we are going to try out the backup daycare at my office. This is our first foray into daycare, and it took me about an hour tonight to put together all the things on the list that we are supposed to bring--extra clothes, pre-made bottles labeled with name, date, and number of ounces, diapers, wipes, extra socks, sunscreen, etc. The logistical part of it is harder than having a nanny, but I am looking forward to the socialization for the boys with other kids their ages, and especially so for AJ who I think often gets bored around our place. Lately he has been into playing "whack brother," which suggests to me that he is both (1) going through a lot of changes with me going back to work and Linda being gone and (2) bored out of his gourd and ready to stir up some trouble. Hopefully he won't be doing any whacking at daycare tomorrow. I certainly don't want him to be that kid.

Tower of Babel

The boys have started to engage in their first play together. More accurately, the boys have started trying to play with the same things at the same time. Since AJ is in the phase where he likes to build the tallest lego towers in town and David is in the phase where he wants to knock down any tall structures within swiping distance, they are a bit of a toxic combination for the time being. A common phrase at our house is "Don't you knock down my tower, Baby David!" Just as AJ has started to learn to build his towers an arm length away, David has started to learn to rotate around in a circle while sitting to give himself an extended wingspan. All the better to knock towers down with! It seems like a developmental contest to see whose skills will evolve further to protect his own wish of building versus swatting.

New Job + New Plan

I want to apologize for my lack of posts and offer an explanation. I started a new job three weeks ago, and I have been so busy and exhausted with the transition back that I don't have the energy to post as frequently as I used to.

I am surprised by the huge difference between being a working mom with one kid and being a working mom with two kids. With one, I spent the two or three hours with him every day after work and before bedtime, and I felt like I was doing enough. I was able to focus solely on him and enjoy our dinner, bathtime and bedtime routine with lots of books and snuggling. With two, I feel like I am not giving either boy enough attention. With the commute and longer hours, I have been leaving earlier and getting home later and only have about 1.5 to 2 hours a day to spend with both boys, and it doesn't feel like nearly enough. I usually feel like I am shortchanging all three of us. I don't want to be overdramatic, but the first day when I was leaving work to drive home, there was a song on the radio that goes something like "I'm holding on/I'm barely breathing/just a broken heart/that's still beating." I have no idea who sings it and it is probably about a dating breakup, but I felt like it captured how I was feeling about being away from the boys and juggling the job and home responsibilities. When the song started playing again as I pulled into the parking lot at work the next morning, I felt a little bit like the universe was speaking to me through Fresh 105.9 F.M.

I think part of the increased difficulty for me has been that dinner is harder and longer with one kid eating table food and one kid eating baby food. I have some ideas on how to make it better, starting with leaving work earlier and working from home later after the boys go to bed. The other ideas are more logistical fixes, including using the crock pot more to have dinner ready when I get home and switching over to giving both boys a bath together so that all three of us can enjoy that time, instead of feeling like I have to rush AJ through his bath because David is getting shortchanged. I think another part of why it is harder is that I now have a two year old who can say things like "You don't have to go to work today, mama." When I started back to work when AJ was 9 months old, he was just excited when I got home and was completely unable to verbalize that he missed me and wanted me around.

To add to the difficulties with the transition, Joe was out of town for all of week 2 and our nanny's father passed away under tragic and unexpected circumstances, so we had to scramble to find backup child care for last week and the coming week. On the upside, this has made me realize and appreciate how much my husband does around the house and to help with the boys (it is a lot, and I'm not just sucking up to him when I say that because he doesn't read this blog) It has also reinforced for me how essential it is to have child care that you feel good about. When our nanny, Linda, is here, I don't worry at all about the boys. I think about them, but I don't worry about them, and there is a huge difference. She has only been with us three months now, but she is already the one who reminds me to order diapers, knows how AJ likes his eggs in the morning and can get David to nap on a schedule.

On the work side of things, I am excited about the new job and do enjoy being back in a work setting where I get to use a different side of my brain and social skills. I won't go into too much more detail about that here because I try to keep this blog about the boys.

Speaking of the blog, I want to continue with regular posting because I love keeping our family and friends in touch with the boys. I am going to try to do one regular weekly posting on Sunday nights and any other posts during the week will just be extra fun bonus material. So maybe don't check here as frequently during the week, because I don't want to disappoint, but be sure to check on Mondays so that we can keep connected.

More pictures to come soon, and if you have any good crock pot recipes, please send 'em my way.