Step By Step

Joseph is up to two steps in a row, now. He's got a little more practice to go to catch up to Corrinna, but he'll be there soon. Good job, Baby Boy!

So Sick

We've fallen, one by one, like dominos. The husband of one of the ladies I visit teach had appedecitis a little more than a week ago and Elena and I went to help her with a few things. Her daughter had some kind of stomache bug, too, making things even more hectic for her. Elena got sick in the middle of the night a few days later while I sweated through dizzy spells. Then, Friday night, two minutes after we walked into a friend's wedding reception no less, Joseph succumbed to the bug as well. Today it was me, again, and then Jonathan. So I haven't really been up to blogging the last little bit. There will be more interesting news soon.

"I Can't!"

For the last two days, every time I ask Elena to do something, she tells me: "I can't." The sheer volume of things she can't do is quite staggering, actually. Not only is she apparently unable to go potty (she does anyway, just at a different time--no worries there), she can't eat tortillas, she can't play puzzles, she can't say sorry, she can't take breaths, she can't take baths, and she can't let anyone else say any prayers. I put her to bed a few minutes ago ("I can't go bed!") and as I left I told her I love her. On my way back down the stairs I heard "I can't love you!" echo down the baby monitor, accompanied by much wailing and proverbial gnashing of teeth. I'm running out of reverse psychology tricks to run on her, and in the meantime we seem to be butting heads all day long. It's a good thing my mood is up and I've been pretty mellow today.

In other news, Joseph was proclaiming the presence of the car out his window, yesterday, on the way home from church. "Gah, gah!" he said, staring at the SUV in the next lane. He also took a step (stumble) across the room, today, reaching for Daddy.

Crayon Alternative

Elena decided to use the crayons to draw a picture of Joseph. This is his head, with (red) eyes and (yellow) mouth way up at the top and neck down at the bottom. She's working on a picture of herself right next to it. She finished it off, filling in gaps and adding hair, a couple of minutes after this picture was taken.

Drop a Memory in My Bucket

Another game from Marin (her sisters-in-law are so cool) that I thought I'd pass on to all of you.

As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember! Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty cool (and funny) to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you :) If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

Big Girl Shopping Expedition

Yesterday was Panties Shopping Day! Gwamma came to meet us and we went up to Tita's Target to meet Tita and Tito for panties shopping. Tita clocked out and spent her break with us while we debated the merits of Cinderella vs. all the Princesses, Dora vs. Hello Kitty, and bold polka dots vs. pastel with lace. Elena personally chose Dance Princesses and Dora, while I added Hello Kitty and Gwamma added the bold variety pack (polka dots included). We also picked out a few new dresses. We had a lot of fun and want to thank Gwamma, Tita and Tito for making it so special. Elena's doing a great job remembering to use the potty, and she really has very few accidents. Here's to 4 days with no diapers!

Is That It?

We started showing Elena the potty and how it works about a year ago. We've done spurts of more intense potty teaching (load up on juice and spend the day in the bathroom) every now and again as my moods have shifted around, but never really enforced anything for more than two or three days. This morning, trying to get Elena out of Jonathan's way so he could finish up his paper, I asked her what she wanted to do.

"Go shopping... get panties."

"If we go shopping for panties, sweetheart, Gwamma's going to want to go, too (that's her Gwamma Thing, taking the little girls to buy big-girl panties)."

"And Tita (my mother-in-law) and Tito (my father-in-law) too."

"What about Popa (my dad)?"

"He go inda office."

"OK... You know, if we go buy panties, you'll have to use the potty."

And she did. We broke out the Tropicana Fruit Squeezes (water with just enough juice to make it taste really good) to keep the momentum going and she downed more than one bottle. We had hot dogs and Freezy Beans (still-frozen green beans--she loves them) while watching Cinderella. There was one accident, but she ran to the potty and finished there, without my reminding her. She went six times, in fact. All of those, she recognized ahead of time that she needed to go, and she went. We're going to do this again, tomorrow, and Sunday too, and (hopefully) she'll be in plastic pants for nursury and we can go on our shopping trip on Monday. I know it won't be a total piece of cake, but I'm amazed at what having her make up her mind can do.

Cookie Dough Syndrome

Elena quit eating, a few weeks ago. She would ask for something to eat then leave the entire thing sitting on the table for the next hour. I tried to serve things I knew she liked. I even tried to make anything she specifically asked for in the hopes that if she got what she was craving that day she might actually ingest it, but alas, no such luck. She's holding steady at 27lbs, but her hemoglobin levels have been consistently low enough when we go to the WIC office that she had to go get a blood draw today to figure out what's going on. This was not a fun experience for either of us.

Joseph stayed strapped into his car seat on the floor because I knew I wouldn't be able to hold on to him. Elena sat in my lap, in The Chair of Torture. I HATE those things. They give me the creeps, and my right elbow reflexively aches any time I look at, or even think about, one. We got the littlest needle they had but it still looked huge compared to Elena's arm, and two nurses came in to do the draw--one for the needle, one to help me hold Elena. Elena knew there was something wrong when I clamped down in a tight hug, and started crying as soon as they brought out the equipment. (That's, unfortunately, my girl--I do the same thing.) It took a little while to get the full 10ml, and I was trying so hard to keep my voice calm and soothing because all I really wanted to do was have a good freak out and maybe be sick in the trash can, but that wouldn't have done anyone any good. She did get two lollipops, though, and an Ariel sticker, and I let her be my helper far anything she wanted to do for the rest of the day.

This is where I had my Grand Epiphany. While making pizza (which she says she loves, but never eats a bite of) she munched several slices of cheese, a handful of mushrooms, a couple slices of pepperoni, a slice or two of ham, and even a few onions, which she used to hate. I thought about it, and realized that she does this for nearly every meal. She'll eat the components, but not the food. Hot dogs are great, but not if they're on the bun--they have to be eaten separately. The same goes for sandwiches. She'll eat pasta, but only without sauce. Half the time, she eats cold cereal as a plate of cheerios or fruit loops and a cup of milk. There are very few foods she'll eat once they hit the "done" stage--pancakes/waffles, cookies, and macaroni & cheese, and that's about it.

I call this Cookie Dough Syndrome: eat the dough, ignore the cookies. It's driving me crazy because I can't figure out what to give her that will actually get eaten.

How Weird is That?

We weighed Joseph on our scale at home and he's up to ~18 lbs. That means, shockingly enough, he and Elena now wear the same size diapers. He's on the loose end, and Elena's on the tight end, but they're still the same size. It makes shopping easier, I do have to admit that. It's a bit strange to think that two children, almost two years apart, are close enough in size to wear diapers from the same package.

Academic Triumph

Jonathan doesn't have any finals this semester. That's bad. He has four or five projects instead. One of them was for his New Urbanism class, taught by the city's resident urban design genious, Sinclair Black. His firm is responsible for Amli Downtown, renovations on the State Theater, and redoing the Seaholm Power Plant. The city council routinely asks his advice on projects they've got going, like the Mueller redevelopment. Jonathan's presentation impressed the pants off of Sinclair Black.

Every question Professor Black asked had a well-thought-out answer--he had never considered the area Jonathan had proposed to redesign, in this way so there were several very good questions. He also asked Jonathan to continue the map of his proposal from his focus on the transit corridor to as far as he could reasonably reach. In the end, it was obvious that Jonathan's work had opened Professor Black's eyes to the hidden possibilities of this idea. I think there's a seriously good Letter of Recommendation for grad school coming our way.

It's a Girl!

Cynthia got her 20 week ultrasound, this week, and they found out they're having a girl! We're really excited for them and can hardly wait until we can meet her in September.