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Saturday, November 23, 2013

Fist Bumps and other things

Today I have a couple of videos. The first is our family "getting ready for bed." Sometimes bedtime takes a long time.



This second one is specifically for Auntie Josie, who used to do a similar thing at the dinner table. We called it "The Hulk."




And here are a few pictures from the day as well. First, Benjamin wearing Kit's hat. Kit is a doll, remember? He was walking around the house with this hat all morning. It was hilarious. And his rash is doing a bit better tummy-wise (though you should see his legs and back).


Here are the girls at lunch:


Rachel helped make Miriam a cream cheese (because sometimes she boycotts peanut butter) and "grandma jam" sandwich and even put a little "bow" on top (against my better (and implicitly proclaimed) judgement). Later Miriam complained about getting sticky fingers. I reminded the girls that that's why sandwiches were invented—to keep the goop tucked away between two pieces of bread.

Sometimes I wish I would sit down and make a comprehensive list of all the weird names my kids have come up with for foods, grandma jam being one of them.

Grandma Jam: Apricot/Pineapple jam that Grandma makes.
Upside-down Yogurt: Yoplait. The kids hate it. They prefer want store-brand.
Vacation Juice: Capri-Sun. Grandma buys this when we go on vacation with her. Apparently.
Prentzels: Pretzels. A simple mispronunciation.
Sangwich: Sandwich. Another simple mispronunciation that will forever live in infamy.

I'm sure there are more. Sometimes I feel like we have our own family code and wonder what people think when they hear our four-year-old squealing about wanting "VACATION JUICE!" in aisle six.

And, lastly, some stills from Benjamin's lovely face-pulling and fist-bumping during dinner:


Fist bump!


Our main excitement for the day was Rachel's "American Girl Doll Club Meeting" at the library. We talked about Molly, a doll based in the 1940s, made a craft, played the clothespin drop game, and ate applesauce cupcakes. And read a chapter from one of Molly's books, of course.

We had a lot of fun!

The kids I left home with Andrew did not. They both screamed until they fell asleep. Miriam was in bed crying herself to sleep before we'd even pulled out of the driveway. Benjamin screamed much longer, but eventually Andrew was able to rock him to sleep and then, unable to settle him down in his crib decided just to nap with Benjamin. 

This is a decision I sometimes have to make as well. If I try to make him sleep on his own, he'll just wake up and want all my attention and I'll get nothing done. If I lie down with him, I'll also get nothing done but I'll get a nap, too. 

We let everyone sleep for a while after we came home and when we eventually woke them up Andrew said, "Sleeping with Benjamin is not restful. I'm all sore from curling up around him and every time I moved he'd wake up and I'd have to lull him back to sleep again. But he screamed bloody murder every time I put him in his crib. I'm so tired!"

"Oh, are you?" I said, a bit patronizingly...because welcome to my life for the last six years. I mean, I know I agreed to take the night shift so that he could function in the morning and go to work (or, ya know, school) but "I'm so tired!" basically sums up my life.

3 comments:

  1. I love baby fist bumps! And you are a good wife because I make Dr. J get all the screaming babies, ten years of this and the man is still doing it, but we've been pretty lucky because they are decent night sleepers so with cosleeping and extended nursing they will usually settle down pretty good with me after he brings them to bed and he can just go back to sleep. They are horrible day sleepers which is why my house usually looks like a disaster :)

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    1. Oh, Andrew is so hard to wake up at night that it's just not worth it to even try. It would take longer to wake up Andrew than it does to stumble to the bedroom to get the baby (who, ummm...yes...is still nursing at night). We co-slept for a long time (and Benjamin usually ends up in bed with us still) but with our bedroom functioning as an office, we kind of needed a place for Benjamin to go to sleep.

      I am having revolutionary ideas about his bedroom though. I'm thinking of having a "sleep room" (with all three kids in one room) and a "play room" (with all the toys/books/music). It's the bunk bed that concerns me. I suppose it's alright until he figures out how to climb out of his crib, but I really don't want him climbing onto the top bunk once he can get out of bed himself. Hmmmm...

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  2. Did Rachel say something about her esophagus not working right?

    I loved the videos! That's the cutest Hulk I've seen in a while! And he looks great in Kit's hat. :)

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