Alternative Lifestyle
Paul does not support our older son's dabbling in dinosaur identities. In fact, he wanted the Barney suit out of the house, but I forgot to stick it in the bag of pass-em-on 3Ts, Jay found it, and since he's trying hard to dress himself these days, the rest is history.

But you cannot watch the child waddle around with his purple tail bobbing and not smile. Even Paul cracked up!
- posted by Lenise @ 10:03 AM |

 

"Stop!" said the small purple dinosaur.
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Who was that round reptile?
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Using the pedals!
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- posted by Lenise @ 8:21 PM |

 

What is this which has attached itself to my hand?
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- posted by Lenise @ 8:20 PM |

 
Must Be Thursday
I had to more-or-less carry floppy oppositional Jay upstairs twice today for diaper changes, and then this afternoon he landed on the knob of a puzzle piece with his forehead first. Ibuprofen drops, a cold pack, and juice were applied liberally. Good thing he's got long bangs, because it's already looking bad.
- posted by Lenise @ 6:06 PM |

 
Fun Little Coinki-dink
We ate at Strong's today while our house was shown. Jay had his "W&L Class of 20??" t-shirt on, and the proprietor said he hadn't seen "one of those" in a while. It turns out he went to high school in Lexington and his mother taught (music) composition at my alma mater while I was there. I remembered that she had written the music for the "Washington and Lee Hymn" (which, of course, has nothing to do with God *shrug*). And (as I mentioned to the lady's son) I'll be having dinner with a former colleague of hers (my piano teacher) on Saturday to kick off my W&L with friends Fourth of July weekend.

As he said, "Small world!"
- posted by Lenise @ 1:04 PM |

 
Tempting Fate
I probably shouldn't write this post, but here goes.

Jay is an agreeable toddler. He really is!

He likes to try new things, like learning where the garbage is and throwing things away. He likes being read to and kissing his brother. He doesn't cry when we leave him with babysitters or in the nursery- he broke in some new babysitters this weekend, and I hear they got many, many leg-hugs (that's about all he can reach, after all).

As long as you're not trying to change his diaper, clean his hands or face (including the dreaded nose-wipe), or put him to bed (some nights/afternoons), you generally don't need to use force to get your way. He says "yeah" a lot, and hasn't yet said "no". I brought home some airplane pajamas, and Jay pulled them off the hanger (or hangar, as I first typed- ha ha!) and got frustrated because he couldn't get the shorts on by himself, but followed me when I suggested he come over to the sofa and let me help him. (He does find the street very tempting, which I think is because he knows that's how we get downtown, and that's probably more interesting to him than the back yard.)

We are blessed! Now if we could just get him to fall asleep in the toddler bed again...
- posted by Lenise @ 8:13 PM |

 
Baby Games
Isaac has a game he likes to play in his swing. I'll stand in front of the swing and lean down to meet him as he comes forward, usually saying something like "grumpy" when we're about an inch apart. It is GREAT fun, let me tell you! ;)
- posted by Lenise @ 8:10 PM |

 

Napping with a buddy (lamb courtesy Cathy Plus One and family!)
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Twenty-one months old and cute as ever
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Standing in the Kick'n'Play
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What? You look at me like I'm foaming at the mouth!
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OK, I like this one from the other morning =]
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- posted by Lenise @ 2:46 PM |

 
Tragic, eh?

- posted by Lenise @ 1:07 PM |

 
Sigh
Here's the original "We love this house" post. I was starting to get over it, but they must be pretty hot to trot, lowering the list price a month and a half in. Again I say *sigh*
- posted by Lenise @ 10:35 PM |

 
Aww, Crud!!
I was on the verge of telling Paul we should take our house off the market. I've been feeling pretty good (I have even carried Jay downstairs a time or two the past week or so) and I'm so tired of showing-related stress (even though we've hardly had any showings lately). And now I discover that my dream house has just come down by $5 grand. It's listed at just under $90,000. My former dream house, meanwhile, is down to $93,000. All of which may very well mean that we'll never get what our house is worth (at least to us). Or it may just mean we could get a real deal on a beautiful old house across the tracks.

Maybe someone else will be goaded into buying it and we can take our house off the market with no regrets. I wish we were the ones goaded into buying it, though!!
- posted by Lenise @ 1:47 PM |

 
Because of Course
When you take the car in, they tell you the rear brake cylinders are leaking, the radiator hose may never have been replaced (in 11 years and 180,000 miles), and the transmission and steering fluid are very dirty. Followed by "and how long are you going to keep this car?"
- posted by Lenise @ 10:13 AM |

 
Just Wondering
If your car's oil essentially empties itself every 3,000 miles, do you really need to drain what's left, or can you just pour a few quarts in and go on your merry way?

OK, OK, it was just a thought.
- posted by Lenise @ 8:39 AM |

 
Stand-up Baby
I don't think I've mentioned here how much Isaac likes standing, but he's been doing it for a while, so I may have forgotten. He's plenty strong; it's just the balance he lacks. He stands in the sling, stands in the Kick'n'Play, stands in our laps. It might be time to get out the doorframe jumper.

Jay continues to add to his words. He says his version of hot "Ahh, ahh!", can now baa with the best of us, and finally says cat. I forget some of the things he says, and still can't understand some of them. He still grunts a lot, but at least he's mixing it up a little more! He was having fun "oh"ing and "uh"ing with the characters in his VeggieTales Esther video today. Actually, he usually beat them to it.

And for our final progress report of the evening: Vyera jumped onto my desk for the second time and is purring and rubbing her silky head against my right hand. That's why my typing is so slow. Sorry ! ;)
- posted by Lenise @ 8:25 PM |

 

The boys hanging out this morning
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- posted by Lenise @ 2:27 PM |

 

Jay demonstrating his pen packing skills for Grandma B
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Isaac visiting with Grandpa B this week
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If I raise my eyebrows high enough, I won't tip over.
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I'm not tired! No wa-aa-aa-y!
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Hat modeling
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Visiting Ducky!
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Waaah!
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WHAT kind of outfit is THAT?
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- posted by Lenise @ 1:52 PM |

 
The Van We Almost Bought
It IS cute, but we'll either find something cheaper or wait until we come into some extra cash.
- posted by Lenise @ 10:46 PM |

 
Pot, Meet the Kettle
In the last couple of weeks, I've seen one gas-guzzling vehicle belonging to each of these parties tailgating and speeding excessively. Nice to know these guys are doing their part! Maybe they're trying for job security?
- posted by Lenise @ 9:07 PM |

 
I-Laughs
Isaac was tickled to see me come home from work today. At least he was once I tickled him. I know, since he laughed!!

Meantime, Jay is making good progress with his Toddler Time songs. He didn't get to go this week, but he's got the first three verses to "If You're Happy and You Know it" down (clap, stomp, shout hurray (or yee-a-y!, in Jay's case)). He's also learning the "Wheels on the Bus" motions.

His B words are quite fun. The one that cracks me up is "BAAAAAAAAAAAA-by!" He also likes to point out blue objects and say "Boo!" "Ball", though, is still a closed-mouth "gmm". *Shrug*
- posted by Lenise @ 8:53 PM |

 
* Coupon Only Good for People Who Don't Do Their Homework
Same with the minimum trade allowance. The van was nice, but they acted like they were doing us a huge favor by starting from the price I saw on the website- they even went so far as to claim that was for a different van with high mileage. Nope, sorry guys. I know what the mileage was on the website (lower than what was now on the van). They almost had us convinced that they were coming close enough. The matter turned on the $2,000 for the Saturn. At one point, we were ready to go through with it on that basis, but they decided not to do it, so we walked.

Four hours later. UGGGH!!!

And our very generous friends had to put up with Mr. Hyde, into whom our sweet happy baby turns right around Jay's bedtime. For hours. And then they offered to lend us their van for our July roadtrip! H&G, y'all rock! Where would we be without our friends??
- posted by Lenise @ 10:18 AM |

 
Rollsaac
Isaac rolled front to back last night just as his Ohio grandparents phoned us. His tummy time has usually consisted of his leaning on my chest as I recline. Obviously, I don't let him roll off of me (we're generally on the sofa, so it would be a pretty substantial drop). Meantime, Jay has added "up,up,up" to his repertoire (from Are You My Mother?, not Go, Dogs. Go! as I reported to my parents last night).

I'm hoping we can get a good deal on a used Freestar. A dealer sent us one of those gimmicky mailings, but it did have a $3,000 coupon in it and promised $2k minimum on a trade. As they have an '04 Freestar with 40,000 miles in stock listed at roughly $14K, it would seem we could shed our Saturn and get a van with only $9,000 to finance, but then I'm not accounting for all those add-ons. It's probably not going to end in a transaction, but it couldn't hurt to start looking. That Saturn has 180,000 miles on it and it's not going to last forever!
- posted by Lenise @ 9:27 PM |

 
Words, Words, Words
Jay's been trying some new linguistic feats of late. Nothing spectacular, but it's encouraging to see him making some progress. Some of the new words he's uttered this week or so: Jay, baby, beep-beep-beep, blue (boo), monkey (well, still 'key), and maybe, just maybe he called me mom. Or he may have been thirsty. Oh, yes, and words like "stinky", "sticky" and "icky" make him smile and say "ki-ky".

Isaac's got his three-month-old repertoire going. Like Jay, his first word was "Auge". This is really remarkable, since I haven't spoken German to either of them ;) Isaac's also got a-goo and a-boo down.

I'll look back on this someday and laugh or maybe cry, but I just have a hard time imagining wanting them to "be quiet". But then they haven't really given me a reason to yet!
- posted by Lenise @ 9:11 PM |

 
Those Jersey Cats Are Tough!

- posted by Lenise @ 10:15 AM |

 
Househunt?
Since Corry asked (and some time ago, at that!), here's what has to count as the update. We still really like this house, but we're waiting for an offer on our house. We could consider renting our current house out, but it's not a popular location for the renters we know (since they're generally grad students, and the universities are 20 miles away), and it would be helpful to cash out our (as yet theoretical) equity. Unfortunately, I just don't know that it's going to sell. We've been on the market since October, and although there's been some tidying up/condensing/shedding of extra stuff, there's also been the addition of infant paraphernalia, and there just hasn't been enough of the former. All the clutter (and the question of whether we'd have time to get the other house in order) makes me think we should either go ahead and get out of this house or just give up on moving for now.

Then there's the question of where our income will be coming from as of next summer. It probably makes more sense to wait and see what job opportunities there are then rather than commit ourselves to living in Mebane now, which would effectively rule out jobs in Raleigh. In fact, although the parents haven't said so, I'm sure they're all hoping we'll move back northward (not likely, I'm afraid, though I wouldn't mind returning to the Shenandoah Valley!).

So that, in a nutshell, is our confusing, frustrating real estate situation. At least we haven't had many showings lately to clean up for and be disappointed about!
- posted by Lenise @ 9:08 PM |

 
Is it Really Too Much to Ask
That one of my children stop crying for more than ten minutes without my having to be present?
- posted by Gary @ 9:15 PM |

 
Three Months!
Yesterday was Isaac's three-month birthday. He celebrated by going to the doctor and trying something called "medicine". Then he was kind of cranky at bedtime and had some trouble falling asleep (Mama was tired enough not to share this problem, so Isaac just had to keep waking her up). Today, Isaac has mostly been himself, which is to say happy as long as there's food in his tummy and someone's interacting with him- really happy! We watched the second half of Ray tonight, and Isaac loved swinging from side to side on Mama's legs.

Hello seems to be broken, and I just haven't quite figured out how to manipulate the Blogger photo upload. But at least there are pictures!


Speaking of swinging, Isaac's been spending lots of time in Jonah's old swing. He likes to wonder how the bears got up there.
- posted by Gary @ 9:53 PM |

 
LOST Spoiler!
But then, when you watch your TV via Netflix, you're bound to run into a spoiler here and there.
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Hmmm...
And what day is it? I really hate to think what's going to happen next Thursday.
- posted by Lenise @ 12:45 PM |

 
Short-Lived Success, and Isaac Beats Jay to Antibiotics
Not a whole lot of sleeping going on around here these days, I'm afraid. Jay and the toddler bed passed the honeymoon phase that first night. The past two nights, Paul has spent hours waiting for Jay to fall asleep only to see him repeatedly bolt from the bed, too eager to cash in the check in the amount of his freedom. Both mornings he's been in his crib, which is where I'd put him after 30 minutes of not staying in bed, but I'm not in charge of Jay's bedtime.

In the meantime, I've given my cold to both of the little ones (and Paul seems to have finally succumbed as well). Isaac had a dry cough Tuesday which got a little worse yesterday, prompting me to call our pediatrician's office. They didn't sound too concerned, so I felt OK about giving him another day to see how he was. He's still fairly smiley, but has been sleeping a lot. Jay seemed to have relapsed into his default slightly-congested status, which we were happy to have been without for a few months.

Then came last night. Terrifying hacking cough, significant fever, crying. I was campaigning for Urgent Care all night (after about 1 AM, anyway), but we held out until this morning. I passed an hour or two sitting in Jay's room listening to his breathing (which really sounded pretty good- regular, not raspy) and wincing at his coughs. This, of course, was broken up by my checking in on Isaac, who fussed a little but didn't wake up enough to feed for most of the scariness.

So we headed off for the drop-in clinic which opens at 8:30. All they recommended for Jay was a humidifier and saline nose drops. Isaac almost got off as easy, but the doc saw an infection starting in his ear, so he gets antibiotics, which Jay has never had. I guess that's why Isaac was so fussy last night, poor kid. Thank goodness he didn't sound like Jay last night- I would have lost it! And if Jay hadn't sounded like he did last night, we wouldn't have caught Isaac's ear infection so early, because we thought he was doing pretty well!

Goes to show why I'm not a doctor =]
- posted by Lenise @ 12:25 PM |