Terri-(ble, fic...?) Twos

Little, who is not quite so little anymore, has reached a new stage in her development. Although she has a couple more months until she is officially 2 years old, I think we can reasonably say that she is in her "Terrible Twos". You know, the boundary testing and pretending like she doesn't hear a word you say, tantrums, screaming, etc? She had a period of about 3 weeks where she went to bed like a champ! Not a single tear, authentic or crocodile, for both naps and bedtime! We were amazed! Terrific! At the same time, during the day, she decided it was fun to test her boundaries out on her sister, with hitting and other not so nice sorts of things. Tonight she almost B-I-T her... Dare I say it? (Terrible!) Not that she is terrible, but the action feels terrible to us. Sometimes I turn my back on them for two seconds and come back to see Littler screaming at the top of her lungs with Little nearby and I have no clue what happened. Today we made the mistake of trying to start potty training with her. It would have been a good idea were it not for her terrible/terrific twos. She actually pooped in the potty today! We were so proud of her, and she got to call Daddy! Unfortunately, she also peed on the floor/chairs/couch approximately 10 times. It seems some muscles were more prepared than others to start with the potty training. The biggest reason we stopped though, is that she said "No," everytime we suggested she sit on the potty, after she had her big success. I don't really think it's worth it if I have to force her to sit on the potty, so I didn't even try. Oh well. Some other time. It's not a big deal and she's younger than most potty trainees these days anyway.

On to the most exciting parts of her Twos. Little can now recognize at least 19 of her letters! And several numbers too. She is a sponge when it comes to things like this, and I feel bad for not working with her on it more often. (Because it's Daddy who does most of it. I help but he is the driving force. Well, really SHE is.) She can STILL read longer than either of us has the patience for, too.

Another Little feat is her voracious appetite for pasta. We went out to dinner for our anniversary (yes, we took the kids with us--the people they know well are on vacation already), and got two dishes, one which was pasta, and she ate more than half of the pasta dish. It worked out fine for me--I had room to order a vanilla bean cheesecake! (Woah, that was RICH.)

And she's really cute in pigtails. As long as I remember to put her in pigtails, I think I can look past the other stuff.

Our Lens

We finally took our broken camera lens in to the repair shop to be fixed, so we should be able to take pictures again, finally, sometime after New Year's. Ouch! To add insult to injury, it's costing what most people pay for their cameras (non-photographers), if not more. It really stings. You know that scene in Spiderman 3 when bad Spidey knocks the photographer's camera away and breaks it, and the dude surreptitiously pulls a point and shoot out of his coat pocket? Yeah, I'm almost there...

Under Construction

Please bear with me while I jiggle things around on this page--things will probably keep changing for awhile.

My Girls and Their Friends

Fun for Kids (and Mommies too...)

I really want to try this sometime. Looks fun!

Happy Birthday to Aunt Martie!

We hope you have a wonderful day! (Can't wait to see you next week, FINALLY!)

Little's Daddy

To see something funny Little did, go to her Daddy's blog. She's so funny!

Sorry...

for the lack of pictures. Our camera card reader broke, so we ordered a cable to take it's place on ebay. Coincidentally, after we paid for the item, the seller we bought from decided he no longer wanted to be an ebay OR paypal user, and all of his sold items have been removed from ebay. (Talk about a flaw in ebay's system...) Although that problem remains unresolved (we currently have a claim open against him in Paypal), we went and bought a cable at an electronics store yesterday, for a dollar less than we got it for on ebay anyway, and we are now able to access our pictures. The gist of all of this is that you will be seeing some pictures in the next day or so.

She was a champ!

Little went to the pediatrician yesterday, where we learned that she is super smart. (Duh! Every parent knows their kid is super smart!) She also had 4 shots and two vials of blood drawn. Blechhhhh! BUT, her Daddy was great and held her and talked to her through it all, and she only cried for a second for each shot. The blood was a little different, since she had already been through 4 shots, so in addition to Daddy hugging/holding her still, a different lady had to come hold her arm still (so sad!), but she resigned herself to it, and forgot about it as soon as it was over, as kids tend to do. Thank goodness for Daddy's is all I can say!

The best part about the whole thing was the number and counting book they gave Little, because that's what we're "focusing" on right now. And we can't argue with the good selection of books to read her while we were waiting for the doctors and nurses to come into the room!

And no more shots for 4 whole weeks.

Lookie!

Schwinn Trailblazer bike trailer/stroller

Look at the bike trailer/double jogger we bought! It comes in a few days and we're super excited! It's not as cool as lots of other ones that looked way neater, but this one was much more affordable while still looking like it can get the job done the way we'd like. Among other things, I'm planning to ride my bike to get groceries on Saturdays (the groceries will go in the trailer and the littles can stay home with Daddy. Hopefully it won't take too long for Littler to be able to ride in it because I want to start using this this thing with them ASAP!

Immunizations Are Coming...

Little is going in to the pediatrician on Friday for her first well child visit since she was 3 1/2 months old (first visit of any kind since then, really). We've decided to vaccinate our children after all, so she will be getting some SHOTS and I'm am very nervous for her! Does anyone have any suggestions for how I can help her through this? She's coming on 21 months old, and wouldn't have much idea what I'm talking about if I tried to prepare her for it earlier that day, though I will try to explain it a little. She's really really shy with strangers these days, though, and I'm afraid she will be traumatized! (I know, I'm probably just an over-concerned parent, but I hate shots, and I know what it's all about!) She also has to get blood drawn to check hematocrit and hemoglobin, and I'm not sure if that's a finger prick or a heel prick that they squeeze blood out of, or what. Yuck! Things were much easier when she didn't go to the doctor!

Just Right

We found out today that Littler is only 12th percentile for height (no big surprise there) and over 80th in weight for that height. It's satisfying to know that all that weight is coming from just me! She weighs 11lbs 6 oz now.

Little, on the other hand, is completely average height and 70th percentile or so weight for her height. Different babies, different sizes, but we think they're just right!

Blessed Sleep!

Littler slept for a little over SIX hours in a row last night! I was amazed! I got into a really deep sleep that was hard to come out of, since I hadn't been woken up sooner, but it was really nice! I have yet to be successful with her sleeping in the bassinet though...

By the time Little was this age, she was sleeping 6 hours straight, then another 4, and she did that for 2 months until we moved here. After that she woke up an average of 6 times a night for the next 10 months until we moved her to her own bed. I'm hoping to avoid that with Littler.

We've Got a New Blog!

Well, we've decided to make an official Peter and Amanda family blog, about the four of us (and more, whenever they come). On this blog, you will find little stories and big pictures of our life here at Stanford, and all of the adventures we have, few and far between though they may be. Stay tuned for future Village improvements. Happy reading!