A.B. Kagledom

We've been a bit busy this past week putting together Adlai's music video or attempting to get Adlai to sleep so we can work on his music video. I'm starting to think he may not actually be a good sleeper - he's just a good sleeper by comparison to you know who. The problem is that Adlai sleeps in one big chunk at night and then wakes up around 4 am very tired but completely unwilling to return to sleep. He is also very happy and loud in the wee hours of the morning which tends to wake up Simon. It is maddening. What is worse is that his naps have started to last no longer than twenty minutes every several hours. Matthew starts to accomplish something and then Adlai wakes up.

The truth is, we've been a bit lax about making him put himself to sleep from a completely awake state and, we suspect, he wakes up for a minute and doesn't know how to get back to sleep without a boob or a bottle or a pacifier. So last night we started a new bedtime routine of waking him up after he nurses and then putting him to bed. Yesterday he cried for an hour and a half. Tonight he cried for an hour. Our evenings are spent taking turns away from the crying because it's really hard to hear for extended periods of time.

As I write this I hear ocean sounds from Adlai's room (to block the sound of Simon), ocean and buoy sounds from Simon's room (to block the sound of Adlai), and snoring from their father in our room. He had his vision corrected at Stanford late this afternoon and, to combat a bad case of the nerves, prepared a four course meal beforehand while taking care of Adlai. When Matthew wakes up tomorrow, he should be able to see the world without the aid of glasses or contacts for the first time in a very very long while. I'm pretty sure, now that his vision is better than mine, that he will need to take the 4 am shift from now on. There is logic there if you look hard enough...

Posted by kagledom at 07:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1. He sleeps on his stomach and knees with his bum in the air.

2. We haven't found any food that he won't eat with gusto.

3. He likes to swing - a lot.

4. He will "army crawl" faster than a speeding bullet for objects he shouldn't have (like the baby monitor or the sound machine).

5. He will be crawling on all fours any day now.

6. When he yells "AAAAAAAA!" he likes it when you yell "AAAAAAA!" back.

7. Like Simon, Adlai will be crawling before he can sit unassisted (contrary to the advice in "What to Expect the First Year").

8. He's a REALLY happy baby.

9 When people gush over him he becomes bashful and hides his face.

10. He cracks up when Simon puts on a show which makes Simon laugh which makes Adlai laugh harder which makes Simon laugh harder. This usually happens in the car where the noise level becomes overwhelming. Even though we can't hear ourselves think, we don't ask them to stop because it is the best sound ever.

Posted by kagledom at 07:46 PM | Permalink

I'm almost afraid to blog it (for fear the luck will end) but since we've returned from vacation, Adlai has been sleeping in his crib for ten hours straight at night. We expected him to have problems adjusting to sleeping on his own after a week of cuddling up to me and waking me up every few hours with: "Mummy, may I have a glass of milk please?" (he speaks in a very distinguished British accent). I guess sleeping next to me was the problem (although we did try the pack-n-play and that only made him noisy which would have kept up Simon).

And in other fearful blogging things, Simon started to toilet train again a few weeks back and has had a good amount of success (relatively speaking). So he was in the bathroom doing his thing (near the toilet) yesterday when a gush of water came flowing out of the toilet and onto the floor and into the hall. He claims all that toilet paper and flushing was intended to "clean the pipes." That same day, Matthew took him to IKEA and he wanted very much to go into "Small Land" (the kids area) but since he isn't fully trained, he isn't allowed. So every thirty minutes Simon asked Matthew: "Am I toilet trained now? Am I toilet trained now???" Every time I think of that it sends me into a fit of giggles. This is the most challenging thing we've ever had to deal with as parents and we've been at it for TWO YEARS.

I have a very sexist but highly rated book from the library and I'm planning a full day toilet intervention in a couple of weeks - as soon as the anatomically correct boy doll that wets his pants arrives in the mail. If it works, Simon will be on his way to "Small Land" soon. If not... well...
Has his warranty run out?

Posted by kagledom at 06:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm almost afraid to blog it (for fear the luck will end) but since we've returned from vacation, Adlai has been sleeping in his crib for ten hours straight at night. We expected him to have problems adjusting to sleeping on his own after a week of cuddling up to me and waking me up every few hours with: "Mummy, may I have a glass of milk please?" (he speaks in a very distinguished British accent). I guess sleeping next to me was the problem (although we did try the pack-n-play and that only made him noisy which would have kept up Simon).

And in other fearful blogging things, Simon started to toilet train again a few weeks back and has had a good amount of success (relatively speaking). So he was in the bathroom doing his thing (near the toilet) yesterday when a gush of water came flowing out of the toilet and onto the floor and into the hall. He claims all that toilet paper and flushing was intended to "clean the pipes." That same day, Matthew took him to IKEA and he wanted very much to go into "Small Land" (the kids area) but since he isn't fully trained, he isn't allowed. So every thirty minutes Simon asked Matthew: "Am I toilet trained now? Am I toilet trained now???" Every time I think of that it sends me into a fit of giggles. This is the most challenging thing we've ever had to deal with as parents and we've been at it for TWO YEARS.

I have a very sexist but highly rated book from the library and I'm planning a full day toilet intervention in a couple of weeks - as soon as the anatomically correct boy doll that wets his pants arrives in the mail. If it works, Simon will be on his way to "Small Land" soon. If not... well...
Has his warranty run out?

Posted by kagledom at 06:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We arrived home late last night (to our closed up home that was at LEAST 95 degrees in every room) after just over a week of action packed family fun in Cape Cod. We agree that the best way to view all vacations these days is through the eyes of Simon and, by that measure, this one was a resounding success. He spent time swimming in the bay, jumping waves in the ocean, and rowing on a lake. He played at the Cape House with the Feefadders and Grandma Whee and played his first game of mini-golf. We forced him into the movie theater to see Wall-E and he loved it - it isn't scary like all the other Disney films. He ate fried scallops and shrimp and pasta and chicken and CHEESE BURGERS and lots and lots of ice cream. He snuggled up with his family to watch fireworks on the beach in Provincetown for the Fourth while sampling chocolate fudge and a "peanut butter blast" bar purchased at a local dessert shop. He hiked through a marsh out-running mosquitoes at every turn and watched intently as a potter worked the wheel at Scargo Pottery while he sat and worked his own clay. He walked through the fields of lavender at the Cape Cod Lavender Farm and squished his feet in the sand at low tide at Campground Beach. He was terribly sad to leave.

From Adlai's perspective the vacation was about new things to see and touch and to stay awake as long as humanly possible at all hours. He perfected his army crawl while we were at the Cape and was able to move to and accost everything Simon left lying around. He had milk straight from the tap instead of in bottles for a week and a half and learned how to crawl over and demand milk by grabbing and saying "EH!" and he learned to bite the boobs while nursing (ouch) even though he has no teeth. He sat in restaurant high chairs for lunch and dinner making him feel very big and learned that if he makes sounds, people will copy him and then he can copy them which is SO COOL. Simon coughs. Adlai coughs. Simon coughs. Adlai coughs. Fun for hours. He touched his toes to the water but didn't get in past his knees. That's because he's not crazy like his big brother - cold water is... COLD even if it is a very hot day.

Matthew and I went through the vacation a bit cranky and feeling very zombie-rific. Don't get me wrong. We had fun: it was great to watch Simon have such a fabulous time and the Feefadders did an amazing job of managing his sleep deprived self while we dealt with our youngest sleep deprived child. But Matthew and I discussed at length on one of our child-free (!) walks to the beach how we are SO DONE with having babies (this time for real). Adlai is adorable and even, dare I say, "fun" and he makes our family feel complete. Also? A year or two from now we'd like to travel without the overwhelming desire to hire two night-nannies to manage the boys and sleep only in environmentally controlled sound proof and light resistant rooms.

Here are a few photo highlights. More pictures are available on Flickr.

Simon at low tide

Adlai with sandy toes

Simon on the Cedar Swamp Trail

Watching fireworks in Provincetown.

Simon on the beach and Feefadder in the raft on the pond.

Adlai and Matthew by the ocean

First game of mini-golf. LOVED IT.

Posted by kagledom at 08:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Matthew sends me photos of the boys throughout the day using his phone - it's how we keep in touch. I particularly enjoyed this week's collection...

The last two I took today with my new Moto RAZR2. I love the phone. Thanks, Moto.

More of the collection is up on Flickr.

Posted by kagledom at 07:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adlai has been doing a lot of yelling recently and when I say yelling I mean, repeating "uuuuh!" for several minutes without a breath at a decibel level so high that we've started using sign language around the house because we just can't hear. Whenever I'm nursing/changing/playing with him and Matthew leaves the room he looks at me as if I'm chopped liver and yells for his Dad's expedient return. He yells at the toys which are too complex or too far away. He is almost always a dinner time yeller - squashing any chance at table conversation.

Last night he was yelling at dinner and reaching for the container of food when we realized the yelling was about feeding himself. So we gave him the spoon and the bowl and he stopped yelling! Until he tried to get the mush into his mouth. "UUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Posted by kagledom at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It was crazy hot both Friday and Saturday but by Sunday our typical Bay Area weather returned.

Adlai, the six month old, can't crawl but can get to anything with controlled rolling, foot-thump-rotating, side lying, scooting, and amazing grabbing skills. He thinks about crawling from time to time but, since he isn't having any trouble getting around, he isn't obsessed with it (like our other baby). Every few days we switch him to a new food. He eats everything. The only way to tell that something isn't going over well is that he stops and cries after about five minutes of eating. If he loves something, he cries after about five minutes because the food isn't coming in a constant stream. We introduced a sippy cup during the hot weather and he took to it right away. He doesn't hold it by himself but sucks water from the hard plastic spout when offered. He's fairly consistent about going to sleep by 7 pm and waking between 4:30 and 5 am (ouch). We've tried putting him to bed later with the idea that he'd sleep in a little but, no, he still wakes up at the same time.

Simon, the four year old, has been challenging us with increasingly difficult questions. On Saturday alone he asked for the technical details of baby making, circumcision, and why the universe exists. He was the only kid at his soccer class that had never played or seen serious soccer before. When the coach told everyone to stand on the orange line, Simon was the only child to speak up: "But why is the line orange?" When the coach told the kids that the cones were a flower garden and they should kick the ball to the other coach to get a ring to place on the cone to "water" the flowers, Simon was the only child to stop the coach for conversation "I don't think this is a flower garden, it's a more like a vegetable garden." We were amused. I'm not sure the coaches (young hard-core soccer guys) found Simon quite as entertaining.

Posted by kagledom at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Things are happening, it's just too hot to talk about them or, rather, to form complete sentences. It's over 100 here in Kagledom WITHOUT AIR CONDITIONING, without even a light breeze, and it has been this way for two days. Here is a summary without sentence structure:

Adlai: up on all fours
Simon: first soccer class

1. 15 minutes terrified


2. 5 minutes interested


3. 10 minutes of playing


4. class over


5. 20 minutes of trying to get him to stop playing and leave

Hot.

Posted by kagledom at 07:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)