You know that awful flu sweeping the nation? Like a new dance sensation, only the sensation is of wanting to crawl into bed and never come out? Yeah, it’s been fun. Fun like only two sick babies and a sick husband can be. I think my favorite was the night I spent half the time with my violently shivering husband and the other half curled up with my thrashing, moaning toddler. It was a long, hard, sleepless, alternately-sweaty-and-freezing night.
Now, though, we are on the mend. They are all better. I am the only one still sick. My cold has turned into something lingering, something with really sore throat and yucky gunk that I won’t describe in too much detail. My doctor, gem that she is, said “try some allergy medicine, they are over-the-counter now.”Gee, thanks. A few days of my husband’s Allegra-D have worked wonders on allowing me to breathe through my nose, but still no relief for the sore throat. Of course, all I probably need is a quiet day, where I drink tea and honey and don’t talk at all.
HA, HA, HA. Oh, I’m wiping away tears–and not all of laughter–now. A quiet day? Here’s my average day (one at home with the kids, that is):
Kerem, don’t push Ceyda, she’s a baby and it hurts her. Ceyda, don’t bite Kerem. NO BITING. Why is the sky blue? The sky is blue because the light from the sun comes through little drops of water in the air. Because mother nature made it that way. Because she likes blue skies. Because blue is her favorite color. Because she likes blue. I don’t know Kerem; have some cheese.
Sunday we visited the Baltimore Aquarium. It was a great trip–the kids loved pretty much every second of it. We saw the dolphin show, zillions of fish (“Ish! Ish!” Baby Bug says), and even a few sharks.
Here’s daddy and baby bug, posing for the camera.
Here’s our big boy, in front of one of the fish tanks. He was too interested in the fish to want to waste time smiling, so this was as well as we could get him to pose!
We also saw the “4D” film they were playing. Not so much a hit with the kids; every time we got sprayed with water, baby bug started crying again. About halfway through, Kerem turned to me and said, “Mommy, I don’t want to watch this anymore” in a very serious, small little voice. Unfortunately we were right in the middle of a very crowded row, so there was really nothing we could do except wait out the last few minutes.
They recovered pretty quickly and were running around and having fun for the rest of the day.
*Edited to re-link photos.
It’s really amazing how Baby Bug is just on the verge of a vocabulary explosion. This past week she has debuted “frog,” “flower,” “cow,” and others I’ve already forgotten. Her favorite activity is to bring you a book, thrust it at you, grunting, “Buu! Buu!” and lift her arms imploringly. If you hesitate, she throws in a couple tears and some foot stamping to seal the deal. She settles in on your lap and speed-reads through the chosen book. No time for actually reading; she just wants to point out to you the highlights. “Cow,” she says on page one. Flips a couple pages. “Meeow,” on page five. Flips a couple more. “Woof! Woof!” on page eight, shuts the book, throws it to the side, and she’s off again.
Fast Turtle was never a reader this young. He wanted blocks, tools, animals. He wanted to build things and knock them over and then run around the fallen toys. Now, he’s learned to turn in circles, spinning until he’s too dizzy to stand anymore. As soon as he starts spinning, Baby Bug runs and hides. She, on the other hand, wants you to read to her. She kisses the backs of your legs as you’re cooking. She kisses her stuffed animals and carries them around, at least for a few minutes. When you first see her after an absence of a few hours, she comes running for a hug, snuggling her head into your neck and tucking her arms in between your body and hers.
When you ask Turtle for a kiss, he cocks his head to the side, looks at you thoughtfully and says in a chirpy voice, “Probably not!”
How do they grow up so fast?
Yes, it’s true. For the first time, our little boy used the potty for what Fisher-Price intended. I was so excited, I called daddy in to see. (He was rather more blasé about it.) I’m crossing my fingers that this could be the beginning of the end of diapers. It’s been increasingly more on my mind as his 3rd birthday approaches. Okay, it’s not till April. That’s approaching! Thus far he’s shown, shall we say, a decided lack of interest in the potty. Offers of “Would you like to sit on the potty?” are usually met with a firm no. “Would you like to wear big boy underpants?” sure, he’s all for that. As long as there’s no potty-sitting involved. We’ve been pretty laid-back about it, noting to ourselves that no one goes to kindergarten still in diapers. (Or is it, no one goes to college still in diapers?) This week, however, I attended the information night for a local preschool program, Montessori, which I’m incredibly excited about. The literature they passed out notes that all children must be potty-trained. Eeek.
Now, really, we have a full 6 months before school starts. By then he’ll be over 3 years old, surely he’ll show interest in using the potty by then. Nonetheless, I was determined to step up the training. And by “step up,” I mean actually start. So, last night we sat on the potty and read a book, nothing happened, but he was agreeable about the whole procedure, so I thought that was a good step in the right direction. Tonight we sit again, and we talked, and I didn’t think anything had happened, but lo and behold when he stands up, his little potty has a little deposit! Success! Hallelujah! Our son won’t go to college in diapers!
I’ll keep you posted on how it goes…
Lately Fast Turtle has gotten very into using our cameras. He’s always loved being allowed to play with them, but now he’s very aware of the picture-taking process, and has turned out some, frankly, rather artistic photos. And also a lot of mommy’s rear end. But, skipping those, here’s one of his most recent ones:
What I love about his photographs is that they are all on his level, so I’m getting to see our house really from his 2 foot high perspective; he often will select one toy sitting on the table and do a nice close-up shot. Like above, a close look at a Statue of Liberty snow globe that Aunt Tee gave gramma for Christmas.
Of course, he also will agree to sometimes be the subject of our photos, here with Baby Bug:
As our pediatrician says, tongue-in-cheek, every time we come in for a visit: “It’s really too bad that there isn’t a family resemblance!”
I particularly like Baby Bug’s flying nun hairstyle (a little hard to see in the pictures) that she has been sporting lately.
