It's teething time!  Avi's lower right front tooth is puffing up his gum line and making him quite cranky, reminiscent of his brother's experience with teething.  In fact, he appears to be cutting his first tooth at exactly the same age (to the week) as Noah would have been if he hadn't been born a month early.  Which makes sense, because teething would definitely seem to be a result of one's gestational age rather than experience.  He's also been throwing up a lot.  Not just spit up, but real throw up, enough to make me worry.  Enough to soak whatever he's wearing and my shirt and pants and the chair we're sitting in too.  It's delightful.  I don't see how that could be connected to teething, but I wonder what it's about because he doesn't otherwise seem sick. 

Noah on the other hand was sick this past week.  That child has been so healthy; I find it rather amazing that this was the first time I can really remember him being sick to his stomach.  It's a test of parenthood to be sweet and comforting while scooping up a comforter and bed sheets holding Lake Barf.  The amazing thing about Noah was that although he tossed his cookies several times, he was perfectly normal (as in his high energy self) in between.  No lethargy, no mopping, no fever.  Just play, ride bikes, run around, test limits, and then hurl again.  We had considered getting rid of that old overstuffed chair in the play/dog room.  Noah helped expedite the process the day he vomited all over it.  Apparently at 4, kids still don't have a lot of control over that bodily function.  Not surprising given the lack of experience with it, but still, if you can't make it to the sink or toilet or bowl we've had you dragging around with you, then at the very least, try to go for a hard floor, please.   Oh well, he helped us move forward on getting rid of the chair.  It was cleaned off, put out on the sidewalk where the sunshine helped mask the stench, advertised with a "free" sign, and gone by dinnertime.

Noah's dance class ended.  The one with him and the gaggle of 3 and 4 year old girls.  He liked the tap part.  Mostly he just liked being with Emma I think.  She wants to take another dance class and I know he would want to do it with her, but I don't think that class is quite right for him.  He needs to get a little bit more energy out.  That one is pretty focused and designed for dainty cooperative little girls.  I wish I could find him just a tap class through Parks and Rec, because the classes were quite a bit cheaper, but there are none offered, and I don't think we can swing for $10 a lesson classes.  Especially since he's taking piano too.  On the other hand, given that he is taking piano, I'm kind of ready for a break in classes.  We've had classes nearly every week since October.  It might be nice to have a little more down time in our schedule.   Noah's excited for Emma's birthday party tomorrow.  We've had fun this week making her a mixed CD of his favorite songs.  (It wasn't until we were in the middle of the project that I realized how funny it was that he was making his first "mixed CD" for a girl he has said he is "going to marry."  His top 23 (in no particular order):
Yellow Submarine by the Beatles
Ya Got Trouble / Seventy-Six Trombones from the Music Man
Volcano by Jimmy Buffett
Use a Word by Red Grammer
Shake Your Brain by Red Grammer
Step In Time from Mary Poppins
Chim Chim Cher-Ee from Mary Poppins
Rolling O by They Might Be Giants
Robot Parade by They Might Be Giants
The Edison Museum by They Might Be Giants
D Is For Drums by They Might Be Giants
Miracle Of Miracles from Fiddler on the Roof
The Marvelous Toy by Tom Paxton
I Have A Little Baby by Rich Glauber
Homey Bulgar/Dir Odessa/Mayim/Freylach/Sirba by The Klezmonauts
Goin' To The Zoo by Tom Paxton
Free To Be... You And Me from the same musical
Down To The River To Pray by Alison Krauss from O' Brother Where Art Thou
Cheri Bim Bam from the Oy Baby CD
Brazzle Dazzle Day from Pete's Dragon with Helen Reddy
Boy Meets Girl with Mel Brooks and Marlo Thomas from Free to Be
Big Rock Candy Mountain by Harry McClintock from O' Brother Where Art Thou
Amoeba Hop by Christine Lavin

 

But don't get too excited about the prospect of upcoming nuptials.   Although he's switched girls from Lena to Emma, he is also still interested in marrying Uncle Pete.  When I explained that he would have to find someone his age and not in his family to marry, he decided that Luke would be a good choice.  

In other Avi news, he is quite consistently pulling himself up now, mostly just on stools.  He loves them, and not until now did I realize how many we have in the house.  He'll find them in the kitchen, his and Noah's rooms, and the laundry room (the places were we spend the most time) and stand up.  He likes to show off his ability to hold on one-handed and wave with the other hand.  I know this is showing off because he grins when he's doing it.  He flashes the same smile when he kneels in the tub and holds onto the side of the tub with one hand.  One day in the kitchen he managed to stumble forward about a foot or two while scooting the stool he was leaning on forward.  He's also climbed one step of the stairs several times, most often in pursuit of the dog toys which I have tried to put out of his reach.  He can't quite get the next step and then usually falls backwards, which he finds very upsetting.  For as mobile and adventurous as he is, he gets pretty upset when he bonks.  One would think it would discourage him, but apparently his brain doesn't work that way.  I think he just watches his brother and wants to do everything he's doing.  

Avi hasn't been very interested in literary pursuits.  I know that despite his adventurous nature, Noah already liked to listen to books at this age, but until yesterday, Avi showed absolutely zero interest.  I've tried reading with him in my lap, on our backs, on our stomachs, on the bed, on the floor, etc.  It's as if I'm reading to aloud to myself.  He pays absolutely no attention to it.  He wanders away to eat toys or climb on things.  But we may have had a breakthrough.  Yesterday when reading Eric Carle's The Very Busy Spider, I noticed that he stopped and looked at me several times when I made the animal sounds.  He also likes the Grow Up book by Nina Laden, but just because of the mirror on the last page.  I have to read it quickly enough to keep him around until the last page.  So tonight I pulled him on my lap and read those two in the rocking chair, and he actually seemed to be paying attention.  (As much attention as a 7 1/2 month baby can pay to anything other than an older sibling - to whom endless attention is happily granted).   

My favorite moment of the day is usually at bedtime, when Cary is reading Noah a story, and I have finished bathing, massaging, and diapering Avi.  I then take him in to get hugs and kisses from Noah and Daddy.  The joy and love between the two boys is palpable.  If there were frustrations in my day, they seem to melt away when I see the sweet smile on Noah's face and watch him eagerly reach for his brother to hug and kiss him.  Avi often squeals and wriggles his whole body with excitement.  It makes me think of that expression "my cup runneth over;"  in those moments, life stands still and there is nothing that needs to get done or nothing else desired.    

 

2/26/08

Avi fell off the bed today. He appears to have suffered no long-term consequences, but I feel horribly, because I know better. I knew the risk, and yet I continued to let him sleep there. I always hear him instantly when he wakes up, but I was in the playroom for a minute helping Noah with paint, and I think I didn't hear him immediately. By the time I did, I went running, but was only half way up the stairs when I heard that terrifying thump. He was pretty scared, but was smiling again within 5 minutes. I don't know what I'm going to do because I can't get him to take a decent nap in his crib. It looks like it's the end of an era. I feel really guilty and thankful that he didn't get seriously hurt.

Noah continues to perplex me.  He had a meltdown this morning because he didn't want to use the lunch bag I wanted him to use.  I won't get into the details, but there was a "you hit you sit moment" and the tired "I'm your mother, you do what I say without arguing" lecture.  Then things turned around and he had a decent day.  He did well at school (despite a lunchtime meltdown because his lunch didn't have "treats" like some of the other kids - i.e. CapriSun sugar drink and cheese and cracker crap package), there were only minor infractions at the grocery store, and he went down easily for a nap without argument and slept for nearly two hours.  He had a bit of a meltdown when I wouldn't give him two treats before dinner (nevermind that he usually doesn't get any), but I successfully diverted his attention to a painting project.  He painted pretty independently for awhile.  I kept checking and admiring his work, not showing any of my stress that there was paint dripping everywhere.  Then when he was ready to clean up, I was helping him and there was a small puddle of paint on the tile floor and he was kicking a ball around and I told him clearly not to get the ball near the paint.  I told him and he just worked harder to get the ball in the paint.  I called him on it and he just maneuvered around until he got it smack dab on top of the paint.  "What's wrong with you child?  Why do you do the exact thing I've asked you not to do.  On purpose.  After we've been having a perfectly nice time!"  I so don't get it.  And no, I don't think we can blame the treat.  It was one candy orange slice.  It's not like he was jacked up on sugar.  So what's it all about?

2/25/08

Well, the fact that I’m writing this is proof that Avi survived my 36-hour absence last weekend. We weren’t sure how it was going to go, because he had yet to take more than an ounce from a bottle, but convinced he wouldn’t starve to death with his father, grandma, and brother around to take care of him, I left him without a boob for a day and a half. He survived. He took the bottle and he ate a lot of cereal, but boy was he hungry when I got home! I’m so glad I went. No one is the worse for it, and I’m better off.
Avi pulled himself up to a stand yesterday. He was playing on the laundry room floor messing around with a stepstool for the longest time. Whacking it, shaking it, sliding around it, tasting it, etc, when I looked over and he was nearly standing. He had his feet on the floor and his hands on the top of the stool and the rest of his body in the air in between. Then he toppled, but “holy cow!” I said, “You’re standing kiddo.” He wasn’t perfectly vertical, but that’s because of the height of the stool. He’s definitely crawling now. He moves fast enough that he disappears. He was playing on the kitchen floor this evening, and when I looked over, he was gone. He was making his way into the playroom/dog room (which has things unsuitable for him like dog food and small toys), so I picked him up and brought him back to the kitchen. By the time I walked back to the other side of the kitchen and turned around again, he was halfway across the threshold to the playroom again.
He certainly has a mind of his own. He inherited that from his brother apparently. God help us. He has discovered that he loves boinging the doorstop in his bedroom. He boings it until it twists off, and then he grabs it and sucks on it. Figuring that it’s not the best thing for him to be sucking on (it’s not like there’s any shortage of appropriate baby toys in the room, I propped up the large cloth playmat against the wall behind the door. Out of sight out of mind, right? He can’t have object permanence yet?!? Maybe it’s that or maybe it’s just the Scherer-Hughes-Lieberman strong willed-stubborn gene. It had been a day or two since he had last messed with the doorstop, but when I heard that distinct “boing” from the next room I came in to find him sucking on the detached doorstop having crawled across the room from where I had put him down, squeezed behind the playmat and found his favorite of favorites.
When he’s not crawling around, he is sitting up quite comfortably now. He can’t quite get into that position on his own, so he likes to be sat up, but then is happy to play with toys for long periods of time like that. Of course, he pushes the toy out of his reach and then gets frustrated that he can’t grab it anymore. Soon enough he’ll have the forward lunge and back to sit move figured out. He wants to be sitting up, but on his own he mostly just manages a sideways prop (see photo). Sort of lying on one side, holding himself up at an angle with one arm, but that makes it hard to do much else (see photo).
In other developments, Avi has learned that he can get a rise out of me if he blows raspberries while eating. He thinks it’s pretty hilarious when I say “no” with a stern voice and face. Meanwhile I’m convinced he learned these atrocious manners from his otherwise well-mannered cousin, Colin. I’m going to have to have a talk with that boy. He’s older, he should be a better role model.
Noah had a great time with Grandma Sandy here last week. When it was time for her to leave, he had a melt down and hid on the couch under a blanket sobbing great heaving sobs, saying, “I don’t want Grandma to leave.” He’s such a sensitive little guy. What a mix of stubborn, difficult, sensitive, and high feeling. Wonder where he got that from?

2/11/08

Avi is very focused on practicing sitting up in the bathtub. He does it over and over, with a look of determination. Then he falls over, looks startled, laughs and goes for it again. The bathtub seems to be the place where he really tries out his new moves. Given his pattern, I expect to see him scooting into a sitting position outside the tub within the next week or so.

Noah and I experienced a big first this past weekend. I dropped him off at piano lessons without going in. I told him I was going to do so about a block before we got to her house. I pulled up, stopped the car, got him out of his car seat, and started to walk him to the stairs. My plan had been to walk him to the bottom of the stairs and have him go the rest of the way up and in on his own, but as soon as I started to follow him, he turned around and said “I don’t need you Mama. I can do it all by myself.” I started to explain that I was just going to go part of the way, but he repeated himself emphatically, so I let him. I stood there in the alley next to the car, listening for his footsteps up the stairs. I could see that there were people in the apartment, so I knew someone would answer the door. I waited to hear the door open, and then I left. Wow. When did he get so old? He just turned 4. It wasn’t until it was all over that I realized just how significant that moment was. It’s the first time in his life that he’s ever gone in to anything on his own. He’ll be going away to college before I know it. Or at least kindergarten.

2/8/08

Last night we experienced a few moments of bliss. I even noticed it at the time and turned to Cary and told him to soak it up. He was cooking dinner. I was happily finishing the dinner prep dishes so that we could sit down to dinner with no dishes to do afterwards. Noah was playing with instruments in the music room and Avi was playing on the carpet beside him, happy to be near his super-star of a big brother. Ahhhhhh, I thought. This is it. Better take note, it may not last for long. It did though. It lasted several minutes until we brought them in for dinner. There’s hope for the future after all.

Today Noah spontaneously asked me what I thought was the best part of his day and then proceeded to tell me that it was when I got to the preschool Shabbat circle and sat by him. Enough to make a mom cry. Mind you, he never wants to sit on my lap there, always preferring the lap of a teacher. (Which works out for his friend Sammy who is always eager to plop down in my lap.) Nevertheless, given that I’m there every Friday afternoon for Shabbat circle, I was surprised and touched by his comment.

Tonight at the oneg after the Tot Shabbat service, Noah had more cookies than I’m afraid he should have, not to mention a slice of cake we shared. So when I saw him reaching for another cookie as we were leaving, I gave him a firm, “no,” complete with raised eyebrow. Much to my frustration, it didn’t stop him from reaching for it anyway. But I wasn’t prepared for his next move. With that familiar devilish twinkle in his eyes, he snatched it up as fast as lightning, licked the bottom of it, and then said, “Now it has my germs, so no one else can eat it!” But I was faster than he. I snatched it from him, saying, “but that doesn’t mean you’re going to eat it." (I had wanted another cookie myself, so I proceeded to eat it myself after he was out of sight. I'm not afraid of his germs. Heck, my lunch half the time is the uneaten food from his lunch box.) Given how wired he was when we tried to put him to bed tonight it’s a good thing he didn’t have one more cookie.

Avi’s 6 month check up was today. He’s no longer remarkable in the height and weight category. Although our bathroom scale measured him at 19 lbs a month ago, he weighed in at 17 lbs, 11 ounces today. While Dr. Feurth said that he probably hasn’t actually lost weight (any more than the normal daily variation everyone experiences), I suspect he might have due to the combination of his lack of appetite and his constant motion. Either way, he’s at the 50th percentile now, which as she pointed out, is about where we would expect him to be genetically. That’s okay, I’d rather have my kids remarkable in other areas than height or weight. The fact that he’s crawling at 6 months, and I’m pretty sure he’s beginning to say mamamamamama with some meaning some of the time is remarkable enough.

2/6/08

One day recently when Noah was supposed to be napping, I can hear him squirming around in his room. I go in to give him my typical lecture about how hard it is for him to fall asleep if he’s not laying down with his eyes closed and his body still. But before I can say anything I notice that as he’s wiggling, strange crinkly noises are coming from his pants. “What’s in your pants?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he replies, as one would expect.
“Noah, what’s in your pants? Take it out now.”
He reaches in and pulls out his doll Shushu, and has a sheepish grin on his face. Meanwhile, I’m trying to be serious and maintain my appearance of stern reprimand, but I’m finding it difficult. “Is that all?” I ask.
He reaches in again and this time brings out a plastic bag of markers. I take them. This time I just look at him. It’s nearly impossible at this point to keep a straight face, but I’m doing my best. Out comes a toy tool, and then another toy tool, and then two or three other things. I take them all, put them in the toy cubbies, tell him in my “listen up buddy” voice that he needs to take a nap, suggest rhetorically that putting stuff down his pants isn’t going to help him fall asleep. Then I leave the room as quickly as possible so I can escape to the pantry downstairs – as far as I can get from his room – to crack up laughing over the whole event. He is such a nut. Are all kids this crazy?

Jenn and Pete and Colin were here for a few days. It was such a treat to get to spend the time with them. We decorated rooms all over the house, doing things I’d been wanting to do since we moved in, but haven’t done because of lack of time or vision. It was great to have the boys together again. Colin has passed up Avi in weight, probably because Avi isn’t interested much in food, other than the kind that comes directly from me, whereas Colin has a hearty appetite. Compound that with Colin’s tendency to be a bit more sedentary, content to smile and laugh and squeal, compared with Avi’s constant motion. He is officially crawling now, not a well-developed rhythmic crawl, but it’s a crawl nonetheless, and combined with rolling, it can get him all around a room in no time at all. He uses this skill to his nefarious advantage to routinely travel to Colin, steal the toy that his cousin was enjoying and then often bonk him on the head with it. Mostly though they had fun together. They enjoyed watching each other. And we only had dueling tantrums a few times. We did discover that Avi finds sharing his evening bath with anyone else completely unacceptable. We put them in the boys bathroom together on the first night, and Avi, who is routinely giddy over bath time, started screaming his head off. We plucked him out, held him in a towel, finished bathing Colin, and then put Avi back in to enjoy his time by himself, which he did. The following night, thinking that the issue was not enough personal space in the regular bathtub, we put them in our big tub in the master bathroom. Same scene. Avi howled again until we pulled him out. Apparently he doesn’t like to share a soak.

1/30/08

Noah’s 4! Where have four years gone? Sunday's party was fodder for one of those magical childhood memories. After our trip to Hawaii in December, he wanted to have a Hawaii party for his birthday. I happened to mention it to a friend of mine who unbeknownst to me had two boxes of Hawaiian themed party decorations in her attic. So we went all out. Then Mother Nature decided to step up the irony of a January Hawaiian party and dumped a half of a foot of snow on Eugene yesterday – the biggest snowfall here in over a decade. Mom (Grandma Nancy), Cary, and Noah built a snowman in the front yard before the party and decked it out with hula skirt, coconut bra, lei, and sunglasses. It was a trip seeing the kids come in, strip off hats, snowpants, boots, and heavy coats to reveal aloha shirts underneath. There were 12 kids altogether, the snow keeping a few away, which maybe wasn’t such a bad thing, given the large number anticipated. The whole event was so sweet. The kids were all good-natured and well-mannered. The beloved local kiddie-star, Rich Glauber sang. He brought a ukulele tuned to his guitar for Noah to play along.

He started piano lessons a few weeks ago, and he’ll start dance class this week (he’ll apparently be the only boy with a whole gaggle of girls). He’s pretty excited. I wonder if he will notice that he’s the only boy. I think the best thing the lessons offer (besides the opportunity to gain skills in his favorite two areas of course) is practice following directions. On one hand I think it’s ridiculous that he’s taking two kinds of lessons, and he’s just 4 years old, but oh well, I’m only off for a year, and he’s been begging for dance lessons for a year and they’re offered cheaply through Eugene Rec Services, so what the heck.

He’s made some huge leaps in his pre-reading and writing skills. Last summer he maybe recognized a handful of letters at best, and by now – with no formal effort to teach him anything – he recognizes most of them (in capital letter form). His writing continues to improve too. I was proud of his thank you notes that he wrote for Hanukkah. We’ll have to make some more now for his birthday. On one hand I can’t believe he’s 4. On the other hand, I can’t believe he still has a year and a half before kindergarten. Not that he’s ready now, but he’ll be so ready when he gets there. It makes you realize the huge discrepancy in exposure to literacy that kids have coming into kindergarten. No wonder the gap becomes a canyon by the later grades.

I had my first official parent-teacher conference for Noah with Carole and Jessica. I’ve been so pleased with his experience at TBI. I don’t know what we’ll do next year when I go back to work, but I hope we’ll find a way to keep him there for the sake of consistency as well as the wonderful job that they all do. They clearly love him and are affectionate but also firm with expectations about appropriate behavior… just the perfect blend for him. Recently Cary and I have suspected that Noah is turning into an introvert. It took me awhile to recognize the signs, because he started out life as such a social baby, but he appears to be (like me, and so many of our family members) a closet introvert. He looks extroverted (he is loud, he isn’t shy, he can be social and likes to be a leader), but really his interactions with other kids, makes me think he’s introverted. Although he likes school a lot, he doesn’t talk much about the other kids. When I ask about them, he can’t name but one or two, and that’s when I’m pressing him for information. I asked Carole and Jessica and they pondered for a moment and then agreed with my assessment. Watching him play, they said, he doesn’t generally seek to engage other kids. He’s happy to play with them of course, and does often, but he isn’t one to call out across the classroom to a buddy. (Not that he’s quiet, he’s just busy loudly singing “76 trombones” or something.) So it’s been interesting to ponder this newly revealed characteristic of his. In another note, we were all rather surprised that EC Cares recommended that we do nothing at this time regarding his speech and reevaluate him in 6 months. He does seem to be improving a little on his own, with lots of reinforcement from us and his teachers.

And Avi’s 6 months! At least, he will be in a couple of days. He is becoming increasingly mobile. He rolls everywhere and scoots, mostly backwards, but a little forwards. It’s not a formal crawl, but it’s getting close; he likes to get up on his hands and knees and rock like he’s getting ready to take off, but then he can’t quite figure out what to do next and gets frustrated.

He occasionally gets in pushup position, his entire trunk off the floor and just his feet and hands touching the floor. He does this mostly in the tub where he insists on bathing on his stomach. The first few days I was understandably quite nervous about this and had my hands in the water right next to him at every moment, but I’m growing more confident in his ability. I try putting him in the tub on his back, but he instantly flips over. He had been moving in this direction for a while, but every since his swimming adventures in Hawaii, he’s insisted upon flipping over to be tummy down. He is happy for a long time in the tub, reaching out for spongy animals and cups. He gets one leg underneath him in good crawl formation and tries to lunge forward, but the slippery nature of naked chubby baby body in the tub makes it hard.

We discovered in Hawaii that he’s a natural swimmer. We took him in the pool and the ocean and he absolutely loved both. He mostly wanted to be tummy down in the water; he would kick his legs, flap his arms, and wave his trunk like the butterfly stroke. I think he was doing a better job with butterfly than I did after a whole season on swim team. He got his whole face in the water a few times and seemed unfazed by it. He was pursing his lips together and blowing bubbles. The whole thing really did make you wonder about reincarnation. It’s uncanny how much that baby likes to be in the water.

Last week I took both boys with me to a singing group at the synagogue. Noah was lying on the floor coloring in a book in the middle of the small group and Avi was also on the floor rolling this way and that and reaching for toys and chair legs. Much to his delight (and Noah’s irritation) Avi kept managing to roll across the circle and into his brother. Oh, it’s just the beginning! Avi looked so excited to have somehow of his own accord reached his brother. And I could just here Noah protesting in the future, begging me to keep Avi out of this or that or stop bugging him. (Noah has continued to ask about another baby and is lobbying for a third baby, this time a girl – his words, not mine – but we’ll see if he changes his tune when Avi starts being more capable of bugging him and his things.)

We finally got tough and made him cry it out a week or so ago. Nighttime had gotten so bad that he was waking up every 30 minutes or so. I think I’m to blame for going to him so quickly when he cries. So we had to get tough. We let him cry for about 45 minutes one night. Not just whining, but full on screaming and kicking and flailing. If a 5 1/2 month old baby can throw a temper tantrum, that’s what it was. Of course, I went in to console him every 5-10 minutes, and in between I talked to Jenn who assured me that he really wouldn’t be emotionally wounded forever by my lack of compassion in this matter. I’m the mother of two. You’d think I would know this by now, but somehow, she had to reassure me. Since then, sleeping has finally been getting better. Avi is frequently sleeping through the night, and I’m feeling much more rested. I guess the only drawback is that I’m going to have to give up those afternoon naps I’ve been taking with him.

He’s talking more and more. He says a lot of “ma ma ma ma” and “na na na” (just a coincidence I’m sure), and Os and Ahs and even a “gga” sometimes. He smiles and laughs as much as ever. I’m convinced he’s the happiest baby I’ve ever known. And I thought Noah was a happy baby.