The little things

I had no idea that five could be so wonderful. These milestones aren't as apparent in you as they are in Finn right now, but they are every bit as amazing.

You've started to pour your own milk. Sometimes it gets too full, but it's never spilled. While you still like the company, you've begun going to the bathroom alone. You willingly get your own drinks and snacks – sometimes. You cut your own food. You tell funny stories. You love Justin Beiber; you've kissed his hand on your poster...with lipstick. You've made up some funky new dance moves that fiercely embarrassed you when we told you how cool it looked.

The other morning you said, "I still have my friends from preschool. Now I have all new friends in kindergarten. So all together, I have lots of friends. And I'll just keep getting more. That's pretty cool actually!" A few days earlier in anticipation of a playdate (that ended up being squashed by a lice outbreak) you said, "I'll have to tell Brynn I haven't fallen in love yet. Maybe she has, then I can marry Creeson." These are the things you contemplate.

A couple weeks ago, you were going to sleep so I put my arm around you. I have done this since, well, since you were born. We have only slept two whole nights apart – ever. Then the other night you just said, "You know, I'm not really a big girl. I'm still pretty little. Remember when you said good-bye to your four-year-old Lily? And then when I woke up, I was five." We chatted a few more minutes before saying our good-nights. Then I put my arm around around you. You squirmed as though it was all of a sudden very uncomfortable. "No, you don't have to do that," and you turned over, away from me, and went to sleep.

You told me you didn't even need to sleep with Baby (Violet) anymore either. When I asked you if you'd like me to get her, you said, "Nah, whatever."

And so it begins. Which is why I keep you so close, because I know you won't always want it that way. While it's pretty squishy with four in a bed, I'll take that over anything because one night I'm going to wake up and I won't have your right arm and your right leg wrapped around me. I won't be able to just kiss your cheek or rub your arm while you sleep. And that makes me kinda sad.

5 months old

My darling, Finn. If you weren't before, you are absolutely adorable and funny and silly and easy-going now. With that little blip of a snotty cold that completely impeded your breathing, I didn't think you'd ever sleep at night or lay down and have a good nap again. But you did. Except for that night part. You seem to be waking every few hours now, even with a couple 5 a.m. wake-up times. But I can't complain. It could be worse.

You're down to two naps for the most part. You nap for a couple hours in the morning and maybe three hours in the afternoon. By 7:30, both you and Lily are usually asleep. Most days...

Here you are sleeping in my arms when you were sick. You would only sleep like this or in your wrap, hence my fear that we might never get you back into the bed by yourself.

You are still incredibly patient. Some days you'll sit in your high chair or exersaucer for upwards of 45 minutes while we prepare and eat meals or tend to Lily (or stare blankly into space). You're favourite "toy" is a plastic flower plate or cup from IKEA as they're easy to hold and shove into your mouth. 

 

 

Like most of us, you count on our routine. Every weekday, we get Lily ready for school and then I put you in the wrap and we walk to school. All the kids say, "Can I see your baby?" They fondle your feet and pull the wrap out of your mouth to see all the drool. "He's cute." Then the bell rings and as we walk back across the school yard, all the older girls point and gush at the cute baby in the little hat as they rush by.

 

You've got a couple new skills. You can sit up by yourself for a few seconds. Sometimes you'll put out your arm to ease the fall on the way down. Sometimes you just oh-so-slowly fall backwards. It shouldn't be long. And I talked about your new tongue trick a few posts back – if that is indeed a skill.

Can't say much about your growth as you have not grown much at all since you turned four months old. Two weeks after we got you weighed, you were a few ounces less than when we had you weighed again. Could be the different scale. Could be that you're shrinking. Or not. Your thighs are still mighty juicy – and you are still a whopping 17 lbs., 15 oz. as of four days ago.

 

Mmmm. Baby thighs. Anyway, as the days go on, your personality comes out more and more. You seem to finally be "getting it" when we play. It's fun, but it's going by so fast...

 

 

Style notes: Sept. 2010 edition

 

As the weather gets cooler, she's beginning to accessorize more...even if the accessories are just made of yarn. The dress is cute. A little short, but it used to be a shirt that I shirred with elastic thread to shrink the neck and sleeves. The belt really makes it.

 

 

The creativity is there, though, with this fancy skirt made of tissue paper from her birthday party.

And then she discovered the up-do – and gold lipstick. Looking this good to go to the grocery store... She says, "I like getting dolled up to go shopping."

 

And then there's getting all dolled up just to stay in the house all Saturday. Complete with heels and clip-on earrings. Gorgeous!

Throwing us for a loop

I should have expected this, right? Just when you think you've got it all figured out...

Right in the middle of days of packing and making sure we've got everything a baby and a 5-year-old could need, Finn decided to wake up at 4 a.m. this morning – for two hours. Kinda like yesterday morning when he woke up at ten to five, all chatty and smiley, with only a forty minute nap until we had to go to school. Where's that schedule I've grown so fond of??? Our whole day gets totally thrown off.

If that wasn't so "bad", when I'm lying there hoping he'll go back to sleep, he likes to turn complete circles while flailing his arms and legs in the dark. He usually ends up at a 90˚ angle to me, perfect for kicks to my head and chest. He's becoming very mobile (compared to not moving at all). Yesterday he went from sitting up perfectly to springing into a crawling position, pushing his feet against the bed and MOVING. Forward. It's like he picked exactly right now to start becoming a real handful. This morning, he actually dove for my chest. Dove with his hands out to grab me. He's never even really shown he was hungry before except by a whine.

This should be fun!

Also, I've scheduled a few posts in our absence. Mostly because this little man will be five months old on Saturday and I didn't want to miss it or have it get lost in all our Disneyland stuff when we get back. Au revoir!

Travel advisory

Chris and I got our pertussis vaccinations this morning because if you haven't heard, there's a travel advisory for the whooping cough outbreak in California – which is exactly where we'll be in two days. Where it's warm...

 

It's cold here. A high of 8˚C today and rain or something silly like that. It was a cold walk to school this morning. But we're prepared...

Complete with hand-me-down Robeez winter boots.

 

And eyelashes. Now visible. To keep those little peepers warm. Someday those eyebrows will be more visible, too.

Mister and his sister

It's a pretty perfect situation. Lily loves to entertain Finn and he loves to be entertained by her. She cracks him up like none of the rest of us can. He perks up when he hears her shrill little voice, as I call it. He loves her repetitiveness. "Who's a cute baby? Who's a cute baby? Who's a cute baby? Who's a cute baby? Who's a cute baby?" If he hears her talking at 6 a.m., he will wake up. (But we try to usher her out of the room as quickly as possible so he sleeps until 7 or 7:30.)

 

She likes to dress him up or "decorate" him. She sings, she dances, she plays peek-a-boo. He's perfectly fine with all of it, even preferring her play to ours at times. His patience is enviable. 

We're very happy they get along because she could easily ignore him or be mean to him or make him cry on purpose. And he could scream, ignore her or not laugh at how truly funny she is. It's nice to have two.

The (not so) Great Tomato Blight of 2010

Ugggh. And I thought the slugs were bad. Turns out I should have just let them have at 'er. Even the green ones I picked on the weekend seem to all have gotten it as they sat together on the counter.

So, no canned tomatoes this year. We've barely even had three fresh ones (out of 12 plants) and zero cherry tomatoes (out of four plants). No sun and all rain makes for late blight. I remember reading about it last year on Martha Stewart's blog and thinking, "Man, how awful would that be?" At least we still have the beets and carrots, but I won't count those potatoes yet because the same spores can infect potatoes, as well as peppers, eggplants, squashes, pumpkins, and melons.

Oh well. My heart just wasn't in it this year anyway. But maybe the rain and mosquitos has more to do with it than a lack of interest.

He likes it how he likes it

He's pretty adorable when he wakes up. Especially when he's got the markings of a very sound sleep. (Not this week, either. These are all from last week and earlier... He has been sleeping AWFUL since this cold struck.)

I remember the first ultrasound we had with Finn. (Okay, it was the third, but the first one where he actually looked human, though we never saw his face.) Then, too, he liked to wedge his face away from any distractions – like in my spine. Even when I feed him when he's tired, he likes to put his hand over his eyes to block out the world.

Yup, those are finger marks on his cheek. It's imperative when sleeping face-down to block out all air and light on the sides, too.

New trick

After Finn's immunizations last week, the public health nurse gave us some handouts "about your four-month-old." One of the points was about playing.

• Imitate your baby or see if your baby will imitate you.

Or something like that. So we started sticking our tongues out at him. Now it's all he does. Doesn't look like his tongue-tie is much of a concern anymore, does it?

So far, so good

There was an open house at the school on Thursday night. I swear we'd never go to anything at the school if we had to pack everyone up, drive there and then try and find a parking spot. In the rain. Fortunately we are three houses away. When we moved in about seven and a half years ago, we mostly liked the fact that we backed the school yard. Back when Chris was super into astronomy, less neighbours meant less intrusive lights when using his telescope. Now we only need three or four minutes to get our shoes and coats on and walk to the furthest door where the kindergarten classroom is.

Anyway, there were so many people there, not everyone fit in the gym for the welcome. Luckily it wasn't long and we got to go to Lily's classroom, meet the teacher (again), and get the lowdown on the year to come.

Then we hurried home and threw the kids in bed.

The French is going well. We do a lot of practicing at home. It'll be fun when she brings French books home from the library to read. Here are a couple of the things she's brought home so far. I never thought I'd be so impressed...

And she's super impressed that she gets a sticker on her work when she does a good job. Big motivators those little stickers are, huh?

Dimmer switch

Things have gotten progressively dimmer as the week has gone on; there are few bright sides at all right now. Not having a stove is painful – and not getting one until next Tuesday hurts even more – especially when it's raining and we can't use the burner on the barbeque. Not that it's fun or desirable standing outside in dreary 11˚C weather anyway. Microwaves are not for baking (or cooking for that matter) and I'm dying for some bumbleberry crumble. Actually anything warm, homemade and sweet would comfort me right now.

The chaotic feeling of having stuff/junk/fabric/toys everywhere while cleaning up from the flood is also getting on everyone's nerves. The sound of the high-powered fans constantly humming and buzzing doesn't help either. Chris came down with the kids' cold a couple days ago and I woke up this morning with a very sore throat. Finn isn't sleeping because when he sleeps on his preferred side, face-down, all the snot drains out and he can't breathe. Followed by crying and sad faces. Like right this second...

Oh, did I mention his 4-month immunization shots on Wednesday made him THE. MOST. MISERABLE. GUY we've seen to date, complete with fever? I suppose it's better than polio or whooping cough, though.

On the bright side

Not quite the long weekend we imagined. When Lily woke up on Saturday, she sneezed and snot came out. When Finn went to bed on Sunday, he was in equally rough shape. This has accounted for only an hour or two of consecutive sleep in the past three days.

He sneezes.

She coughs.

On the bright side, we've gotten to take it easy and watch lots of movies and iCarly episodes.

Then on Sunday night it rained something like four inches. After many (or maybe just a few) years of having a dry basement, we got flooded as water streamed in through cracks that were previously patched. Worse yet, it soaked one corner of our third level where all my fabric and sewing stuff reside.

On the bright side, this kick-started the clean-up so that we can organize an area in the basement to be a playroom.

And then, when we were ready to make some lovely trout for supper, I heard some very loud snap, crackle, pop, bang! sounds from the bedroom where we were reading books. I ran down to the kitchen where I first saw smoke billowing out of the back of the stove. When I got closer, I saw the flames shooting up the back onto the wall.

On the bright side, we'd already had sushi for lunch and now had to get take-out for supper. Not that that's all that bright, but it was tasty.

Maybe next time...

You were all set to walk to school by yourself this morning. I kept asking, "Are you sure you want to go by yourself?" "Yes, I'm sure. Can I have a house key?"

Perhaps it was because I wasn't going to give you a house key (since you can't even unlock the door by yourself), you decided at 8:51 a.m. that yes Mom, I would like you and Finn to walk me to school.

So greasy hair and all, pajamas on Finn, we walked to school. I think I'll catch a quick shower while Finn sleeps so the other moms won't get oil stains on them from my hair if they stand too close...