Oh, Glorious Sleep

Take a look at this, she's sleeping. Sssshhhh, don't wake the baby. Are you kidding? From day one, we decided it's best to make noise around her so she's use to it. The result, she'll sleep through anything, during the day that is. Night time is another matter. She's up every hour or two ready to eat, actually snack. We can't get her to eat a full meal at one sitting. When we tried some tactics to make her eat more, the result was, how shall I say it, unfortunate. I'll just tell you that I had to change into different pajamas. So, we let her decide how much to eat, thus causing me to get up every couple of hours or so.

However, I am happy to report that last night was different. Everything seemed the same as usual, except when I looked at the clock to see what ungodly hour I was getting up to my daughter's pleas for food, I noticed four hours had lapsed. FOUR!!! Not one, not two, but FOUR!!!

Happily I went through the same ritual I do every night of feeding her, changing her, feeding her until she's in a milk coma, putting her in a sleep sac in her bed (no blankets due to SIDS), and finally putting myself back into bed. When I awoke to yet another desperate plea for food, I looked at the clock, and lo and behold, three hours had passed. THREE!!! Was it possible? Let's see, four plus three equals, hmmm, seven. SEVEN!!! Holy jumping sheep, Batman, I got seven hours of sleep. Whoo-hoo!

MMMMmmmm, Candy!

Ok, Stella, after reading your blog, I have to comment too.

Which do you prefer? Milk chocolate or dark chocolate?
Definitely dark! The darker, the better.

Hard candies or chewy candies?
Chewy, especially gummy bears. I'm afraid of hard candies since I tend to bite into them and sometimes my teeth get stuck together. Once biting into a jolly rancher, I thought I was going to pull out a tooth or two trying to pry my upper and lower molars apart.

Tootsie Pops or Blow Pops?
Neither, especially due to the above.

Plain M&Ms or Peanut M&Ms?
Make mine peanut.

Are you tempted by the candy display at the grocery store check-out?
Most definitely, to distract myself I look at the magazine covers. Fortunately, I usually have Ian with me and he is plenty of entertainment to take my mind off the sugar.

What is your absolute favorite candy?
If money were no object, I would say Godiva Truffles, dark chocolate. Of course any of those truffles would suffice, they're heavenly! Fortunately, Paul knows my weakness for them and supplies them on special occasions. Yes, he's a keeper.

Let Them Eat Cake!

Ah, yes, Ian has discovered the wonderful world of CAKE. I'm not exactly sure where or when the most recent exposure came from, but one day he started spouting it out while looking at his birthday pictures. I didn't think he even knew what a cake was, let alone be able to say it. He kept turning the pages in the photo album and pointing out every place he saw cake. I decided we should have some in honor of the occasion.

We happened to have a small container of petits fours. Not exactly cheap stuff, but hey, he's worth it. I picked out a chocolate flavored one and cut it in half for him. If he didn't like it, I would gladly eat the other half. Needless to say, he LOVED it! He blurted out CAKE again and thusly received the remaining part (too bad for me). Now it seems, anytime we're eating, he's asking for cake. As if that's not bad enough, he's starting to sound like Homer Simpson saying, "MMMMmmmm, cake," followed by a river of drool.

Wonderful Paul had bought us some mini cupcakes for Valentine's Day. They were the perfect size for Ian to hold. However, he didn't know what to do with the swirl of icing on top. He kept putting it in his open mouth, but not biting down. Out came the cupcake, completely intact, not even a tooth mark. I finally got him to try the icing, he grimaced as he chewed. The next time he ate a cupcake, he turned it around so he could eat just the cake part. He left the icing completely alone and unscathed. Normally, kids will eat the icing first, sometimes that will be all that they do eat. Not Ian, no, he marches to a different drum.

LAUREL PICTURES:

Oh, POOP!

You know you are the proud mother of a toddler when...

you get excited that your brilliant child came running up to you shouting, "Mama, Poop!"

In the all too recent past, Ian would rather sit and play in a poopy diaper than be changed. At first, when we got a sniff of unpleasantness, we would ask him, "Ian, did you poop?" and he would respond with a Teletubby sing-song response of "Nooooo." Very sweet, but an all out lie. After a few weeks of this, Ian wisened up to the fact that we didn't believe his "no" response, especially since we changed his diaper anyway. Instead of saying no to the all too familiar poop question, Ian started to run off. He would literally look around for the best escape route and then bolt. Of course mama or dada were in hot pursuit, which resulted in him being led by the hand to the dreaded diaper change. Throughout all of this, I tried to explain to Ian that the best solution would be for him to realize he did have a dirty diaper and tell me he did.

Today, I'm proud to report that Ian has done just that. There I was, taking a breather on the couch with Laurel sleeping soundly on me, when suddenly, this fuzzy head came bobbing by. Ian had this huge smile on his face, just absolutely beaming, and then he spouted out, "Mama, Poop!" I couldn't believe my ears. I checked, and sure enough... I cheered, I clapped, I kissed, I hugged, I did everything I could think of to make sure he knew how important this was. And then, poor Ian was led by the hand yet again to another dreaded diaper change.

Language Explosion

Something major happened to Ian while Paul and I were in the hospital. It seems like over night he learned to speak. Suddenly, he's saying words we had no clue he knew. Sure, he could say ca... we knew he meant car. But now, it's absolutely CAR, emphasis on the R please. We show him an altogether too familiar little furry red monster and he's spouting Elmo. When he's ready for his Teletubbies, he's yelling out T.V.! That thing that's floating in the water, you got it, BOAT. Then there's his favorite word: NO!!!! I swear I hear him saying phrases too. On more than one occasion he has told us, "I did it," or "there you go."

Of course he's still experimenting with the sounds, and he's not always saying the words correctly, but Paul and I have definitely learned Ianese. See if you can figure out what the little guy is saying:

bi bir
orel
ice (not the frozen water either)
ane
ah ee
umm

I'll post the answers later. Here's a hint, he seems to leave off the beginning or ending consonant sound, except for the last two. Good luck.

Wylie health update: Paul & Ian seem to be over the worst of their colds. Ian still has a runny nose and coughs once in a while, but nothing like before. Laurel is still majorly congested, poor thing.

Pictures

Ian loves to kiss his baby sister.










Laurel's not so sure about Ian's interest in her.









The kids and Paul are still sick. These colds could last forever, so I thought I'd post some pictures.




Ahhh, so sweet!










Too funny, Ian will pose with a smile when asked. Very natural looking, don't you think?