Easter and Rashes and Cross Dressing Nudity

It's been a busy past couple of days, I guess. Almost two weeks, really. The four of us have had strep throat (though the doctor never did a swab of the kids because their throats weren't that red, but they both had ear infections the same time that Libby and I had strep, so I don't see how it couldn't be related), then Norah started to get a rash, then Easter weekend, then Norah's rash got really bad, and then, this morning, Gabe put on Libby's wedges (I guess that's what they're called) while not wearing any pants and strutted around in my office. And I got pictures of it all. Let's start with Easter.

We haven't yet celebrated Easter here at home. There just hasn't been any real need yet. This year Gabe finally grasped the concept of egg hunting, and he's gotten pretty good about looking for them in actual hiding places and not just sitting out on a table or somewhere else obvious. But, as in years past, we went out to Cunningham and celebrated with family (my brother Ben and his wife Skye and their still in utero baby--who will likely either be named Patrick or Patricia, I'm betting--were visiting from Kentucky as well). While there, Gabe got to participate in three egg hunts, including the traditional "throw a few dumpsters full of candy on the football field and let the kids rush out there" event that the town throws. It's not so much an egg hunt as a free-for-all, but Gabe actually managed to rake in quite a haul this year, so I consider it a success even if all it required of him was an ability to walk at a brisk rate while bending over to pick up candy from the ground.

Another tradition--the wearing of the basket like a hat (with goddamn binky in mouth). Somehow we've managed to get a picture of Gabe doing this ever year. It's a little odd, really. He's still not much for hats. Besides his fireman hat, he really won't keep one on his head for more than a few seconds. Yet, every year, he will wear his Easter basket around until he has something to put in it.

We tried to get Norah to participate in the tradition, too, but she had a little trouble grasping the concept.

He kept it on pretty much right up to the time where they started running around, grabbing candy.

Look! Someone other than Gabe and Norah in a picture! Hurray!

After the big egg hunt, they did an inside the house egg hunt, and then, later in the day, Mom refilled the plastic eggs and they were hidden in the yard so the kids could find them one more time.

And Gabe had finally had enough of waiting to eat his candy. After gathering a healthy share, he started busting into them and stuffing the candy into his mouth as fast as he could before we could stop him. I'm reasonably sure that he didn't eat anything else the entire day. Just candy.

Norah on a tractor. Not relevant, really, but it was on the memory card so I included it.

And that was Easter. While we were out there, though, we noticed that the rash Norah had was starting to spread. It started out early last week as a few spots on her left leg, and it stayed like that for a few days, not really getting any worse and not spreading. But Saturday, it started to creep up her back. By Sunday afternoon, it had spread all over her body. But Monday morning, what started as some spots on her left leg had turned into a gigantic patch of dark, dark red--almost like a terrible burn. And the spots all over her body were spreading and growing darker, too.

We took her to our doctor and were told that it was a reaction to the penicillin she was taking for the ear infection. A pretty severe reaction. The doctor decided to list her as allergic to it in her file (though it's tough to say if it was that or simply a bad reaction to its first use--which often happens, apparently, though typically not as severely as it happened to her--as she has not had an antibiotic of any sort so far).

Only a few times did she act as though it was bothering her. She cringed and whinged a few times when it was at its worst, but, for the most part, she acted like it wasn't such a big thing. Except that, once we started "Poor babying" her because of it, she started to try and milk it for all it was worth. We tried to get a little video of her talking about "A rach" and rubbing her belly like she was miserable, but she kind of stopped before we got the camera around.

Still, there is a video of her pulling up her shirt and sticking her finger in her bellybutton. That's always entertaining.

The rash on her belly. What a belly. Built like a World's Strongest Man competitor.

The rash, very nearly at its worst on her leg. This was the only spot that got fire red like this. Gabe decided that Norah was a volcano after seeing it.

The weirdest part was that it took about six days from the start of the antibiotics for the rash to get bad. And then it was at its worse the twenty-four hours after she stopped taking it. But, it's lightening up now and she seems to be through the worst of it. Sadly, she got used to not sleeping well again and has been up three or four times every night for the past two weeks. Hopefully she'll realize soon that she doesn't have to start crying and waking up the entire household and can just, instead, go back to sleep when she wakes up in the middle of the night. How I long for that day. But, considering Gabe still doesn't do it very well, we've still got a few more years of never sleeping. By that point it will probably be something like six years without much decent sleep. It's no wonder parents always look so much older than people who never have kids of an equivalent age.

And, finally, this morning. From time to time, Gabe likes to run around the house without any pants on. I don't like it. If it's just me in the house, I always make him put pants on immediately. But Libby doesn't have a problem with little boy junk flopping around all over everything, and this morning I came down to see Gabe playing with his legos, legs spread wide open, without any pants on. Then, while Libby was getting ready for work, Gabe found her new pair of shoes and started walking around with them.

Here's what that looked like:

Awesome. I told him to turn just his head towards the camera and smile for me, but he couldn't do it without turning his whole body to the camera. Still, a pretty good blackmail picture should he decide to habitually break curfew in high school. We've got lots of those. Our kids better stay in line or they'll have all sorts of stuff to embarrass the hell out of them with their peers. Forward planning, that's what it's all about!

Shared Consciousness

OK. So, when I was sitting here staring at the blank template for this blog post, trying to come up with a good approach to this material, I totally had a brainstorm. Despite the fact that this only happened about two minutes ago, this brainstorm is completely accurate, brilliant, painstakingly well thought out, and, in all likelihood, a game changer. By reading this now, you are experiencing history--actual, going to be referenced in textbooks INSTEAD OF crackpots like Jung and Skinner and Freud and Dr. Jason Seaver (Alan Thicke's character from "Growing Pains," and, yes, I know that having to explain an obscure pop culture reference completely defeats the purpose of it, but, at the same time, I know that only about two people read this blog and I figure at least both of you should be in on the joke) history.

Hopefully I can remember what I was thinking about several minutes ago before I started cluttering my brain with Thicke references and the inevitable tangential mental leap to just what the hell has happened to Kirk Cameron these last couple decades.

What did happen to that guy? He's a total douche now. We get it. You found the lord. Stop milking your Tiger Beat cred from twenty years ago to convert simpletons. It's just sad.

Anyway, it goes something like this.

You know how the theory about the Seven Basic Story Plots goes, right? No? Let me refresh your Intro to Lit basics.

The theory goes that, ultimately, it is impossible for anyone to come up with an "original" story plot because it's all been done before, in some way, shape, or form. All stories fall into seven basic categories (note: to prevent me from having to use the awkward "(wo)man" construction, or from appearing gender biased by only referring to either "man" or "woman," I will instead insert my own name, because I am the perfect Every(wo)man, obviously):

1) Pat vs. Nature (also a conveniently named blog of mine that I stopped updating a few years back, so I'm obviously way ahead of the curve here);

2) Pat vs. Pat (an AWESOME concept that would rock the foundation of storytelling--someone should totally write this up--and I know the PERFECT person to play both roles!);

3) Pat vs. The Environment (probably not as interesting a foundation for a story, but certainly a potentially lucrative reality program option. Maybe it could be a mix of "Man vs. Wild" and "Living with Ed," where every week I have to invade some pristine wilderness with my camera crew and caterers and convince the wildlife to run in exercise wheels to generate enough electricity for me to make toast. I think this idea has legs);

4) Pat vs. Machines/Technology (perhaps I could get Bill Shatner to spearhead a sci-fi series based on this concept when he's had enough of writing about himself--yeah, like he'll ever get tired of that);

5) Pat vs. The Supernatural (I've never seen the show "Supernatural," so I'm not sure if I'd be opposed to it or not, and I'm not sure how this story form has existed for so long when that show has been on for less than a decade);

6) Pat vs. Pat (uh oh, the first one was Man vs. Man and this one is Man vs. Self, but both of them, in this example, would be written as Pat vs. Pat, so CLEARLY this is the most EXPLOSIVE storytelling option as it would kill two "basic stories" with one Pat! Or two Pat's, I guess, whatever. Oh, wait, I guess the first one should have been Pat vs. Evil Pat--where Evil Pat is clean shaven since I have this chin beard thing I'm rocking right now, which is too close to a goatie for it to be clear who is evil and who isn't. Then the second one could be Pat vs. Pat. But I still think both of these could be worked into one storyline, which would be FOUR TIMES THE PAT. Just, wow);

7) Pat vs. God/Religion (Probably my autobiography, as that's sort of how my life has been shaping up anyway).

Guess what? That last section, while possibly mildly entertaining, served almost no purpose whatsoever. It is relevant ONLY as an example for what I am proposing and and in no way will it enrich what I am about to say. I just wasted a few more minutes of your time! Snap!

Are you ready? You're lucky I didn't charge you for the whole seat you are sitting in, because you clearly only need the edge!

Obviously I didn't charge you anything for the seat you are sitting in. It's your seat, or your employer's, or a friend's, or the library's, or you're sitting under an overpass or something. So I guess you're doubly lucky that I'm also not taking your money, because you'd feel VERY ripped off once you finished reading this. Nothing can live up to this kind of build up. Alan Thicke, Bill Shatner, Pat Albers and Pat Albers in "The Parent Trap" (clearly I didn't make this reference earlier, but I SHOULD have)? That's a lot to tack onto this supposed brainstorm I had, especially considering it's been a half an hour since I had the thought and I surely don't remember that much about it.

What's more, it's late at night and I spent the entire day out at my parents' celebrating Easter (it's Easter Eve now)--which is where the video that's following was taken. And now I'm just too tired to even keep thinking about it anymore. So I'm going to wait until tomorrow or Monday when I can sit down again to finish this. Pretty lame, eh? What are the odds that I'll even remember having this supposedly world rocking revelation, much less be able to pin it down on here? Let's see . . . .

. . . .

Well, here it is, the middle of the afternoon on Easter Sunday. In a stroke of luck, this is the second major holiday that we've been able to stay at home and relax. However, since Uncle James isn't here as he was for Christmas, I am not just waking up from a nap with a middle-of-the-day hangover (and then getting rid of it by getting drunk a second time). Sad, that.

And well I should lead in with Uncle James because it is the personality traits that he shares with Gabe that was the entire point of this blog. I'll get to the specifics in a moment.

There is a very good reason that I try to get all the way through a post as quickly as possible. I almost never save drafts of these things and come back to finish them later. Because I know that, if I did, I would be forced to read what I wrote earlier and actually think things through a little bit. Which I have done with the stuff I wrote last night.

That's not to say that, if I could go back in time, I'd dive at last-night-Pat while he typed, all slow motion "Nooooooooooo!" to prevent him from creating the first half of this post. I think it does a pretty good job of both establishing the main thrust of my post while still managing to be a complete waste of time. Win, win. However, I don't have such a good feeling about the whole "shared consciousness" thing that I felt so strongly would change the world.

Here's the thing. Yesterday, Gabe discovered a Big Wheel that he could ride. We have a "Big Wheel." It's not a REAL Big Wheel, but some knock off with Hot Wheels logos all over it. And Gabe rides it. He likes the thing. But he has been unable to make the pedals work. Something about the way its set up makes it very difficult for him to pedal and make move. If he IS able to move the pedals, the wheel tends to spin instead of making the thing go forward. Before yesterday, I just assumed that was a problem with ALL Big Wheels--most of the weight (and, thus, traction) is on the back wheels, so it's understandable that the front wheel would have a rough go of propelling the whole affair.

But it turns out it is just a design flaw in the knock off Big Wheel. Yesterday, Gabe got to spend some time on an honest to god Big Wheel that my dad found in their attic--left their by the previous owners. The little three-wheeler was missing one of the handles, but it STILL handled better than the one Gabe owns. He was tearing all over the yard in it, despite the fact that he had to awkwardly hold the left hand side steady without the benefit of a handle.

And while he was riding it, Libby remarked on how much Gabe looked like her brother James. Apparently, the Big Wheel was one of James' favorite things when they were growing up.

We got a little video of him on it.

The hill was Dad's idea. A few weeks ago, they closed this section of Highway 54 off. A spiffy new four lane bypasses traffic around Cunningham now. So this road is pretty much deserted now. Now. Riding trikes and stuff down this hill was not a new thing for Gabe, though. Apparently Dad has been bringing him up the hill for some time now. Right next to what used to be considerable traffic. Ben and I also discussed the fact that Tanner (our nephew, the older boy riding the trike in the video) is seven. When I was seven, I was driving tractors unsupervised. There is NO way that we would trust Tanner to do the same. Putting that little tidbit next to the safety concerns of hills/children/traffic, we're a little surprised that we survived our childhoods. Or, conversely, we are over-protective of our children now. Certainly a topic for debate.

So, my whole point with where I was going earlier was that there exists Seven Basic Personality Types, and people in possession of these different personality types actually share some form of bond or genetic memory or something that compels them to do and like the same things. And I was going to hypothesize that Gabe and James share a common personality type.

But now we get into the trickier part because I didn't come up with the seven different types last night. I came up with the first one: 1) Adventurous. Clearly that one links James and Gabe quite nicely. It was immediately relevant and, honestly, if I hadn't come up with that one I wouldn't have had the concept for this blog post. But then I sort of failed to follow through on the rest of it.

Let's see. 1) Adventurous; 2) Stoic; 3) Passive-Aggressive; 4) Caustic; 5) Gassy; 6) Turtle-necked; 7) Andy's. Face it, there's just something about Andy's. It's hard to put a finger on, but something about them just doesn't jibe. I think that does a pretty good job of covering all of it. Or at least the stuff that popped into my head immediately.

There. You're welcome, psychiatric community! I just solved all your problems. Or something. Whatever.

Oh wait, that attitude reminds me. Personality 8) Pat.

There, now you're welcome.

Stuff

I am going to make an attempt to catch up on the video and pictures that we've amassed over the past few weeks that I've been negligent in adding. It appears as though I have a little bit of time this morning as both of the kids are thoroughly engrossed in a Tinkerbell movie on Disney Channel. I swear, I never know what Gabe is going to like. He asked me to record this one so he could watch it again later. I don't think I'd wish a Tinkerbell movie on anyone. Kids are weird.

Anyway.

Two weeks ago or so, Libby picked up a training potty for Norah in a bout of hopeless optimism. Norah is showing slightly more signs of readiness than Gabe was showing at this age, but only slightly, I think. She will tell Libby if she has pooped. She never tells me, though. And she is starting to master blaming other people for her farts, which is probably a milestone of some sort. She hasn't quite figured out who is appropriate blaming material, though. Yesterday or the day before, while in the car with Libby, Norah farted and she said, "Tooted. Eye, tooted," meaning that her eye had tooted. She also blames Lulu and anything else that happens to be nearby.

Norah has also been having some fun with bonking. If she knocks her head on something or runs into something, she'll usually go "Oof, bonk." Here she is extending that to one of her toys.

Libby has a new fad, too. Chickens. Dirty, stinky, nasty, stupid, self-destructive chickens. Want to know what it's like being around chickens? Read Sherwood Anderson's "The Egg." It does a good job of capturing the terribleness of chickens. But, at the very least, Libby is trying to keep from wasting TOO much money on the damn things. Instead of buying a coop somewhere, she's building one out of lumber scraps we have from previous projects. Well, technically, the two wheels and the chicken wire that she had to buy cost about half as much as a new chicken coop would have cost. But who's counting? Here's Gabe putting hammer to nail, a few times out of ten.

And then Norah joined in as well. Don't they look cute and helpful? Just like all small children are! Helpful!

This is one of Norah's favorite ways to sit on my chair to watch television. She does it quite often. There is almost nothing about this that makes sense to me.

Huh. It seemed to me that there was more stuff in there when I sorted through it last week. Maybe I missed something. Oh well, your loss, I suppose. But here is a video Libby took last night. The part with Norah flapping her wings like a bird is kind of cute, I suppose, but the best part comes towards the end after she kicks the stool away. I have suspected for a few weeks now that she's already learned to blame Gabe for whatever happens that's bad. My first instinct until recently has always been to assume that Gabe has pushed or prodded Norah to make her cry. And, more often than not, that had been the case. But now I have to be more careful before I snap to a judgement. A couple times earlier in the week, when they were playing upstairs, Norah would start crying. I'd go up to see what the problem was and Norah would be saying, "Gabe! Gabe!" but she would be nowhere near Gabe. Moreover, Gabe would be sitting, obviously still paying attention to some game or toy that in no way concerned what Norah appeared to be doing. "It was Norah!" Gabe would insist. And I'm pretty sure it was.

Norah actually needs to learn the crying wolf lesson soon, otherwise she runs the risk of being the one to ALWAYS get in trouble when something bad happens and she starts to cry. It happened to my brother Jon. He was a classic cry-baby. Early on he learned that he could get us in trouble if he cried. So he started to cry about everything. EVERYTHING. He still does, actually. But that's beside the point. Before long, Mom and Dad caught wise and until he got to a point where he wasn't crying all the time and instantly blaming us, Mom and Dad always assumed that Jon was just being a douche and trying to get us in trouble. And Ben and I fully exploited that. We could beat on Jon mercilessly without any real fear of punishment because, as long as there weren't any marks or noises or other proof that we had done so, Mom and Dad assumed that Jon was just crying to get us in trouble. Now, Norah is running the risk of having the same thing happen to her. She would be wise to carefully consider her options. Which is exactly what all two year olds are best known for doing.

They Grow Up So Fast

Those who spend any amount of time talking parenting with me will, no doubt, be familiar with my frequent laments about the age of my children, specifically that I can't wait for them to NOT be this age anymore so that I might regain just a smidgen of my personal freedom and individuality. I have, pretty much since Norah was born, been openly pining for the day when the pair of them are in school and I can have my days back. Partly I do this because it is true--GOD I want these kids in school so that I can have me time again. But mostly I do it because that is part of my personality. I grew up a farmer, and farmers talk hard times. It's what they do. It's what they know. It might not be entirely how they feel, but that's how it usually plays out in the public eye.

Still, I am singularly aware of just how lucky I am, and I fully appreciate the opportunity that I have to raise our children--to spend every day with them and to enjoy their developing personalities and to be a part of the fun, the marvel, and the challenge of growing up. Few days go by when I don't truly, deeply love what I do and take great pride and joy in the doing of it (though, those few days DO happen, usually when too little sleep or some sickness or other has gripped me thoroughly, and those are very unfun days).

But there is a very fine line between GETTING to stay home with the kids and HAVING to stay home with the kids. Every day I vacillate between these feelings of privilege and subjugation a bit wildly. At one point I might relish the opportunity to "play army" with Gabe or to flip through the pages of a book with Norah, but a short time later I might feel painfully disinterested in, once again, being forced to build another lego creation that will be destroyed in two minutes with Gabe or helping Norah with her colors, knowing full well she will not stay at the table with them and I'll be wiping colorful streaks off the windows again a short time later. I spend most of my time somewhere in the middle GEVING . . . or HATTING . . . to be with my children. I'm not sure either of those words work, but you get my meaning. Perhaps bittersweet is a better way of putting it.

And, though my personality prompts me to express the bitter aspects more often than I should, I do have an abiding appreciation for the sweet parts as well. Having small children means having little creatures around you that depend wholly on your presence. But, more than NEEDING to have you around to do things FOR them, they WANT to have you around to do things WITH them. They want to experience your world and learn more about it. They want to be a part of it, and they want to share their joy of discovery and exploration with you. They want the experience to be mutually fulfilling--meaning, they want you to love what they are doing as much as they love what they are doing.

This, of course, is a very weighty obligation. Anyone who tells you that smashing play-doh for thirty minutes of every day for three or four years will keep being fun is feeding you a line of bull or trying to convince themselves that they aren't (or haven't) wasted a considerable amount of their own time and energy doing exactly that. But, the good news is, it IS possible to fake it most of the time, and play-doh eventually dries out, and if you don't buy anymore, then magically you can move on to something different for awhile.

There is somewhere specific that I was going with this, and it is rather related to this topic, but I'm not sure there is an easy way to transition from the complexities of maintaining genuine enjoyment in child rearing and what happened this morning with Gabe. So I'm just going to, rather disjointedly, jump over to what went down at school this morning.

Throughout this school year, every morning when I dropped Gabe off, I would schlep Norah into his classroom, set her down and let her play for a minute or two, help Gabe pull his show-and-tell item out of his bag, put it in the basket, then take off his coat, and hang his coat and bag up in his little cubby. Then I would talk briefly with his teachers and watch as he explored whatever the day's special activities were going to be for a wee bit. After this, I would give him a hug, tell him to have a good day, and he would go about his business. I would pick Norah up, we would say goodbye again, and then I would take her back out to the car and go home. Twice a week I've done this since the school year started in late August or early September, whenever.

It was our little morning ritual. I say "was" because I think it might have ended today.

For the past two weeks, when we've gone down there with him, he's been rather anxious to get me back out the door, saying things like, "You take Norah and go home now." He's never been one to mince words. The teachers and I had a good chuckle about this, but I always gathered Norah up shortly after that and we left (which has become increasingly more difficult as she REALLY wants to stay in there and play with all the marvelous new things the school has to offer instead of coming back to our boring old house--so, in that sense, this development might not be a bad thing, because her tantrums were starting to be a bit much).

This morning he took the next logical step. After I got him out of the car and as I was going around to get Norah out from the other side, Gabe went up to the school door and said, "You open the door and I will hug you then you will go home." He didn't want me to come in anymore. He didn't want Norah to come in anymore. He didn't want me to help with his coat and bag. But, probably most significantly, he didn't feel like he NEEDED me to do any of that for him anymore. He wanted to do it on his own. He was taking his first step towards independence, and, while he's been showing more signs of wanting to do his own thing here at the house, this really marks a pretty BIG step in my mind as this is him going out in the world on his own and not just playing in his room with his toys.

Despite what he wanted, I still walked him into the building and helped him get his show-and-tell item out of his bag, but then I sent him into the classroom on his own and let him (well, probably mostly his teachers) sort out the hanging of his coat and bag and all the rest of it. But still. A pretty big step, and it won't be long before he doesn't want me to do more than let him out of the car and make sure he gets inside.

Soon, the days when he wants to snuggle on the couch, or give me a hug for no reason, or tell me he loves me out of the blue will be gone. Before long, he won't want me to help him set up his army guys or build him another lego creation to destroy in two minutes. He won't need me to start him a movie or get him a cup of chocolate milk or make sure he's wearing underwear. He will officially become a big boy, and Libby and I will become little more than providers of meals and shelter. He will become his own person, and we will have to relearn how to be our own people again.

The farmer in me is, I have to admit, rather overjoyed at this prospect. But the Dad in me is a little heartbroken. As I said, bittersweet. But that, in a nutshell, is parenting, and there's nothing I can do but push on and hope that someday, when he has his own children, he will at least be able to relate to everything that we've gone through for and with him.

Note: One last thing on the concept of children growing up fast. They don't. Time, in fact, is a constant. Children do change rather rapidly as they have a tendency to grow and mature as they learn things (which adults, more often than not, don't, so that is likely where the disconnect comes). However, these years do SEEM to go by quickly. That is only a misperception on the part of the parents precipitated by the fact that 90% of their days go by in a fugue of sleep deprived half-consciousness. That time does kind of fly by because, when you're only half awake and doing the same things day after day, the days do seem to kind of slip by. All one has to do to realize that time is still going by at the normal rate is to think back and try to picture every sleepless night in the past few years, or every episode of Dora, or every diaper change, or every meal prepared and/or personally spooned into a waiting mouth. Quickly it becomes apparent that there are too many of these things to count, and some of the more memorable ones will seem like a lifetime ago. Weigh that "lifetime" against the "blink of an eye" of the child growing up, and time starts to regain its proper perspective. Now, send that kid off to school and get something done for a change!

Sleep and a Diaper Disaster

I've actually been meaning to do a sleep update for a few weeks now--as I've apparently made it my goal to complain about the same things on a semi-regular basis on here--but hadn't gotten around to it yet. But this morning, we had a minor disaster that was sleep related, so this seemed like a good time to touch on the subject.

I'm quite curious to see how Norah's sleep habits pan out over the years. As someone who never takes sleep for granted, and who understands that having a "normal" sleep pattern is important if one wants to be a productive--or at least functional--member of society, I've taken the job of hammering home good sleep practices in my children very seriously. With Gabe it was actually pretty easy. From the beginning, he was an early to bedder. Falling asleep at 7:00 in the evening came naturally to him (that has changed somewhat now, as it's not unusual for him to sit up in bed "reading" until 9:00 or sometimes 10:00 now, but he's still always in bed by 8:00 because, let's face it, there is no time of the day as wonderful as the part when the children are all in bed).

But Norah was a different animal. It took us several months to get her used to going to bed at 8:00 and waking up around 7:00. That part, at least, I think we've figured out. For now.

While I'm in the predicting mood, though, I'm going to go ahead and throw another one out there. I think there is a very good chance that Norah will end up being a night owl like me. I think it will become increasingly difficult to get her to go to bed early and wake up early. It's not that uncommon for her to sleep in until 8:00 now, and that's with her going to bed early. Right now, she is DEFINITELY not a morning person. She usually wakes up cranky (both in the morning and from her naps)--as if she needs her first cup of coffee in the morning before she's really awake--and she is a pretty terrible sleeper (which, I know personally, makes it about impossible to look forward to mornings).

But we'll see. This is my great sleep experiment. It's obvious that her body/brain are naturally pushing her towards being a night person/late riser, and I'm going to do everything in my power to change that through good sleep habits. We'll see which wins out in the end, nature or nurture.

My money is on nature, but it always is.

Anyway. Norah's overnight sleeping has still not improved. She's still up at least once and usually two or three times every night. And she still needs a milk bottle to go back to sleep. We've tried water or crystal light bottles to reduce her calorie intake (which she desperately needs) but she's gotten to the point where she will stand up in bed, screaming and crying, and throw those bottles out of her crib. Based on this, we assumed that she was getting hungry in the middle of the night and not just wanting the bottle to suck on, so we have tried to feed her right before bed time instead of normal dinner time. We've tried to make sure that dinner is her biggest meal of the day. We've tried . . . well, everything.

We are at our wits end. Well, to be fair, my wits ended a couple years ago, but you catch my drift.

Nothing works. We can't even drastically water down her milk because she can tell the difference (though I HAVE been able to get away with a 50/50 mix of 1% milk and water, but that's as weak as she'll allow without a middle of the night tantrum). We can't let her cry herself to sleep because, if she cries for more than two minutes, she pukes. Every time. And she still isn't old enough to be reasoned with (by this point, I really think that is the only way this situation is ever going to fix itself, is simply to wait until she's old enough to somehow be reasoned with).

To make matters worse, she soaks her bed every night. Because she drinks SO much and because she is SO ginormous (meaning we maxed out diaper sizes six months ago), she saturates her diapers by about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. Changing her would be nice, obviously, but getting her out of bed wakes her up enough that an hour on the couch downstairs is usually required to get her back to sleep again. And once she's wet, she's miserable, which wakes her up and perpetuates the cycle of problems.

Conundrum.

But about a week ago we realized something that we hadn't tried yet. Nighttime, "extra absorbancy" diapers. Yeah. Not sure how we hadn't thought of that one before. So I bought a bag and we gave them a whirl.

A week into this experiment and I have to declare it a non-decision still. It hasn't really improved her sleeping. She's still been up a few times every night. But, except for last night, her bed has been dry every morning (so that part was a success). However, she's also been suffering from an ear ache (and the whole family had strep throat over the weekend and we're just not starting to recover form it). So, being sick might be waking her up, too. Thus the indecision. We will give it a couple weeks and see how it goes. I SO help this reduces the number of times she wakes up to once a night if nothing else. Because, sweet lord, this is getting OLD.

So there's that.

But as I said before, when I got her out of bed this morning, her sheets were, once again, sopping wet. She had a rougher night than usual, going through three bottles, so I wasn't too surprised to find her waking up in a near-puddle of her own waste. But when I got her downstairs and undressed her to change her clothes and diaper, I discovered the real reason that she leaked all over her bed.

This is what diapers are filled with.

You can't see it very well in the picture, but her diaper exploded. This was just the pile of the silicony blurg that I managed to keep inside her PJs. She was covered in it from shoulder to toe. Thanks to the containment of her PJs, the little absorbent pellets couldn't escape, but they sure traveled all over the contained area, and then, of course, they escaped as soon as I unzipped her. They escaped all over the living room floor, and then over the path from the living room into the bathtub where we took a first-thing-in-the-morning bath.

This is probably a good argument in favor of cloth diapers, actually. Except it's an argument that would have fallen on my deaf ears after we tried cloth diapers for that month or so with Gabe. I'll take a coating of probably non-biodegradable sludge over constant diaper rash and swamp butt any day, thank you very much. Sorry environment, but thems the breaks.


OK, and I DO still have other pictures and videos that I should be sharing, but it will just have to wait until another day. Again.

Gabe Does the Most Disgustingly Hilarious Thing Ever Caught on Video (by us)

This morning I spent a little time moving our pictures and videos from the camera over to the hard drive and noticed that I've been a little remiss the past couple weeks on posting some of the stuff that's on there. I will try to catch that up here before too long (I've actually been pretty remiss about posting on here in general the past month or so).

But this video we got yesterday was just too good not to get a post of its own.

Here's a little back story, just to fill space and build dramatic tension so you're all primed and especially appreciative of how awesome this video is.

Last night, Libby decided to build her straw bale garden. It's actually a pretty fascinating concept that utilizes all kinds of sciencey things like "wheat straw" and "seeds" and "dirt" and "water" and "other things I don't really care about." The long and short of it is that you plant your seeds in the top of the straw bales, which have been treated with some ammonia, which something somethings the straw and makes it blah blah and the seeds grow up a foot or so off the ground so the goddamn rabbits don't eat everything. Neat! And with Gabe and Norah's help last night, she got the prep work started.

After the bales were moved, the kids decided that they wanted to ride in the gardening cart/kind of useless wheel barrel jobby that we have. They were being kind of cute in it so I ran in and got the camera. I clicked off a few quick pictures . . . .

Ah, adorable, if a little off-centered.

Even more adorable and slightly-more-centered!

Then, after the pictures, I decided to start a little video because Norah was being kind of obnoxious to Gabe, sitting up then dropping back on him (like she is in that last picture) and standing up then dropping down on his lap.

And the video started off innocent enough, but watch closely around the time Libby spins the cart around. Specifically, watch Gabe. It's kind of tough to see what he does initially, but here's a hint: he has some allergies or a cold going on right now. What follows after that is pretty easy to figure out, though. Enjoy.

Good stuff, eh? Hopefully you can see what's going on well enough on the kind of dumbed down version that Blogger posts on here. If not, let me know in the comments and I'll put it on youtube. I'm really tempted to submit it to an America's Funniest Home Videos or something, but I'm not sure if what he's doing is THAT obvious since you can't really hear the sneeze. Plus my laughing throughout is pretty stupid. I've gotta get a handle on ruining my own videos with my noise in the background.

Administrative Notes

Warning: If you are one of the people who checks this blog periodically to see what funny crap my kids have been up to, this post might not be one of the better ones to read.

When I set out on this little venture a little over two years ago, I declared that OFFICIALLY I was doing it to help track our kids' development through their first years for future reference. The fact that I would be mostly poking fun along the way was just a byproduct of my definitely cerebral act of maintaining a running analysis of the different ways our kids grew up. Definitely cerebral. But, in order to keep up that facade, I feel as though I have to make periodic entries that focus almost entirely on that topic, and I'm probably way overdue for something like that right now.

Hello future Norah! Probably by now you are wondering why I only address you and not Gabe from time to time. Possibly it is unfair of me to do so, but based on what I'm seeing right now, I'm pretty sure that only you will have the patience or interest to actually read through these posts. While we plan to share them with both of you at some undisclosed point in the future, it's pretty apparent, based on what we're seeing of your blossoming personalities, that Gabe will scan through these pages, look at the pictures, click on any videos that look especially amusing, watch five or ten seconds of them, then move on to the next page. You, on the other hand, might actually have some interest in reading these posts and jumping back a decade or two in time and seeing your development through our eyes. Or not, in which case I'm only wasting quite a substantial amount of my time and the time of the few people who read this blog. Surely you don't want all that time to have been wasted simply because you don't want to read all the way through these posts? I thought not.

It's actually very interesting watching how differently the two of them have developed over this last year. In many ways, Norah is almost caught up with Gabe in some areas and even exceeds him in one or two. She has always had significantly more patience for drawing or staying focused on one thing for an extended period of time, and it's only been in the last six months or so that Gabe has finally started to do the same thing. Where Gabe still doesn't fully comprehend the necessity for "contained" drawing--meaning coloring in the lines with different colors or drawing a shape instead of just scribbling all over a piece of paper--Norah is already showing some signs of understanding the ideas behind it. Most of the time, when she's drawing, she makes her little "thinking" moan and draws circles. Endless, endless circles. She's drawn thousands of them. She's filled a dozen or so color books and drawing pads with them. She likes circles. But she has also made some attempts at coloring figures in the books. She's no good at it yet, but I can tell that she's trying to actually color within the lines instead of just applying color to the page in general as Gabe often does.

Another thing that Gabe has only recently shown interest in is his little Leapster keyboard/game system/whatever thingy we bought him for his second birthday. We've had the thing for two years. We bought it hoping that Gabe would glom onto it and it would help him learn his letters and numbers. See, it's a cartridge game system that uses a little keyboard and mouse interface to play the games. We've got four games plus the ones that are built in, and all of them focus on basic reading/counting skills and learning how to use a keyboard and mouse. We also figured that it wouldn't be a bad idea to familiarize him with those things as early as possible, too, since he's going to be using them for most of his life. Well, until they are replaced by something better. But familiarizing him with the technology seemed like a good idea.

But he's had NO interest in it. He refused to learn how to work the mouse, the games seemed to bore him, and he never put together that the letters on the screen had a coinciding letter on the keyboard. Until about three weeks ago. Now, about once a day, he wants to go up and play his games. Sometimes it keeps his focus for an hour, sometimes five minutes. He still hasn't quite figured out how to make the mouse do what he wants to end one game and start a new one, and he can't work out how to reset the system when he puts a new cartridge in, but I assume that will come soon enough.

The thing is, though, Norah is already working all this stuff out. Gabe is very protective of the keyboard when he's up there. He refuses to let her mess with it, and if he has to come down to use the bathroom or something, he asks me to put the keyboard up somewhere high so she won't mess with it while he's gone. But the times when he isn't paying attention, she's already starting to work out how to use the mouse. I see her watching the screen as she moves the cursor and figuring it out. It's really pretty fascinating.

And forget about language skills. Norah is almost a full year ahead of how Gabe developed linguistically. Possibly more than a year. Because it's free (and because we had a few concerns with how slowly Gabe seemed to be progressing linguistically), we signed up for a Parents as Teachers program. One of the workers comes out every six weeks and spends a little time with the kids to see how they are coming along. Gabe was never behind, as such--and now he's pretty much right where he's supposed to be (except for a few glaring exceptions, like the use of his binky)--but he was certainly never ahead of where he should have been. Norah, on the other hand, is WELL ahead of where almost two year olds typically are. The PaT lady said that, by two, kids will typically just be putting a couple words together in "sentences." Norah has been doing that for a few months now and is starting to piece together some rather complicated series of words and modifiers. A little bit ago, she asked me for "up high crackers," meaning she wanted some of the Club crackers we keep on top of one of our cabinets instead of the saltines or pretzels we have on a lower cabinet.

And she is becoming comprehensible much more quickly than Gabe did. Now, MOST of what Gabe says is understandable to people who are only around him from time to time. Complete strangers will still cock their heads to one side and ponder his meanings sometimes, but that's mostly because he tends to talk really fast and worry less about pronunciation than just getting all the sounds out as quickly as possible. But even by three years old, it took a trained ear to pick up most of what he was saying. I would say Norah is to that point right now. Some words only those of us around her all the time know what she's saying, but she's moving pretty quickly with that stuff and might be caught up with Gabe in the next six months or so.

On the other hand, she's moving rather slowly on the gross motor end of things. I'm pretty sure Gabe was climbing the stairs with gusto by this point. Norah CAN go up the stairs, but she usually just goes up a stair, sits down for five minutes, goes up another stair, sits down for five minutes, and so forth. She just doesn't have a lot of interest in going places or doing things. I can respect that. But she IS showing increased interest in being outside, which is good. I mean, it sucks, because I hate being outside, but I know it's what's best for my kids and I'll take the nature bullet for them. And it's especially good for her because, well, she needs the exercise. Rather badly.

The one thing I wonder, though, is how much of Norah's development can be attributed to Gabe being around. Is she developing language more quickly to communicate with him, where Gabe didn't have to worry about it much because we were always there interpreting and providing him with what he needed without much effort on his part? Is she moving around less quickly because she has Gabe to watch running all around her and doesn't need to supply her own physical entertainment? It IS rather interesting. Just probably not to all of you. Maybe the next post will be more entertaining!

Jumping in Muddy Puddles

For quite a long time now, on no-longer-Noggin, in between shows they run little snippets of other shows, little educational skits and the like to fill the time that would normally be filled by commercials when the regular programming would air on Nickelodeon. Usually the snippets of shows came from full length programs that they-should-have-stuck-with-Noggin isn't running in their entirety yet. The two that pop immediately to mind are Pocoyo and Peppa Pig. Both are British shows (Stephen Fry does the narrator's voice for Pocoyo and several names I recognize have done voices on Peppa). By in large, these shows are FAR better than most of the dreck they've got on . . . fine, I'll just call it Nick Jr., even though this confuses it with the early morning segment on Nickelodeon of the same name, but, for some reason, they didn't show full episodes of either.

Until about two months ago when they started showing Peppa Pig (still no Pocoyo, which is weird because I've seen it on the Spanish channel). And over these past two months, the show has risen in my esteem to the number #2 spot of favorite pre-K programs (still behind Gabba, which despite daily viewings STILL doesn't annoy me all that much).

Yes, I know. That was a long, drawn out way of getting to Peppa Pig and the fact that we watch and enjoy it. Deal with it. That's just how I role.

The show is quite clever and the characters are amusing. The parents do and say things that aren't THAT patronizing to the children--making them seem slightly more real than the usual parents on these shows who, if they're available at all, are little more than reinforcement machines there only to encourage their children to go out and do something entirely inappropriate for their age. And sometimes they say things that I find genuinely hilarious. Daddy Pig is fond of saying, "I'm something of an expert" about pretty much anything that he doesn't know anything about, usually with comic results (my favorite so far was when he tried to read a letter from Peppa's pen pal in France, carefully pronouncing all of the French words after announcing that he was something of an expert on French--then, after reading it all, he declares that "It's no good. It's nonsense." Which, being French, of course it is).

Plus, both of our kids love the show. Norah even laughs at it pretty regularly. Usually she just kind of watches what's on but doesn't respond much to it beyond pointing at a character and saying, "Yook! A Mouse!" (this for Mickey Mouse), but with this one she will laugh at one thing or another as if she's actually understanding what's going on. Pretty impressive, really, considering Gabe really only starting understanding what he was watching on TV about a year ago.

So I would highly recommend the show to anyone who is imprisoned in the cage of pre-K programming. Sadly, they only have one DVD available here in the states right now, and the show is only on weekends on Nick Jr.

I'm sure I had a point I was getting to.

Oh yes. Muddy Puddles. One of their favorite things to do on Peppa Pig--because they are pigs--is to "jump in muddy puddles." As the narrator declares quite regularly, "Everyone loves to jump in muddy puddles."

So, Sunday, after the kids ran the sprinkler for awhile, we had our own muddy puddles for the kids to jump around in. They loved it. I'm still doing the laundry because they ended up needing two baths and went through three pairs of clothes each because every time we got them cleaned up and went back outside, as soon as we turned our backs on them, they immediately went back into the puddles. Good times.

I didn't get many pictures of them, but I did get two videos. Still, this single picture says quite a lot.

Playing in the sprinkler. I got a little video of them just playing in the sprinkler before they moved on to the mud.

And the puddle playing. All told, I think they spent about thirty minutes jumping around and slopping in the puddles (counting all three times they went back in). Pretty good play life for a bit of water and a few ruined feet of grass.

In Which I Make a Prediction

It's been pretty well established that I think Gabe's temperament, personality, and love of action make him a clear candidate for daredevilry or stunt manry when he grows up. But I don't think I've made any predictions for Norah's future so far. Yesterday gave me cause to throw my lot once more into the predicting pool.

Future Norah, dear. You're going to want to go ahead and skip this post. You are almost certainly not going to like what you see here. Just remember, hon, this is all in good fun. I don't REALLY think you're going to grow up to be a caber tosser (but you have to admit, based on the evidence I'm presenting, you certainly look like you'll make a fine one).

Yeah, that's right, I said caber tosser.

For a few years, Libby's family was REALLY into the Scottish scene. They were all tartan this and haggis that and Robert Burns the other. Her brother and sister did highland dancing, and her folks did some dancing too. I can't remember what it was called. "Traditional" dancing. As I remember, it was like square dancing except EVERYONE wore dresses. Anyway, while they were doing all this stuff, Libby and I occasionally joined them at Scottish festivals here and there, and it was at these festivals that I was first exposed to the caber toss.

For those unfamiliar with the sport (I really wanted to put that word in quotes, but then I thought about it--really, what could be MORE demanding than picking up and throwing a telephone pole for distance? That deserves to be called a sport more than just about anything else) . . . . Oh. I just described it in my parentheses. Guess I can't finish that sentence outside of it now. Poor planning on my part.

Yesterday, we had some friends over and the kids played around in the yard. It was almost 90 degrees and miserably hot (in contrast, today is going to be around 50, cloudy, and windy, and it got down to about freezing last night--gotta love Kansas weather). Because the kids were getting a bit overheated, Libby suggested we get out the sprinkler for them to play in. I will do a separate post about all of that tomorrow, though, because it really kind of descended into a sort of disaster.

Before they got into the water, Libby half-stripped the kids, so some of their clothes wouldn't get wet (which would end up being a fruitless venture since they both kept coming outside in fresh clothes and heading back to the mess they made with the sprinkler--I think they both went through like three sets of clothes last night.

And I got these pictures.

I mean, come on! Having some background in Scottish stuffs, how could I NOT think she looked like a caber tosser?

I will leave it at that for today, but after about ten minutes of playing in the sprinkler, things got much messier, and we got some more photos and pictures to share. I'll cover that tomorrow. And by "tomorrow," I mean whenever I remember to sit down and post about it sometime soon.