Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Arthur, Month Seven

Arthur is turning seven months old just in time for Christmas!



He had a couple of "firsts" this month, including his first crackers, his first playground swing, and his first shoes, but the big news is that he can almost walk - not bad for a seven-month-old! Arthur pulls himself up to standing and "cruises" by walking while holding on to furniture. He can also climb up stairs, though his face-first method of climbing down stairs leaves something to be desired.

In addition to perennial favorites like power cords, tablecloths, and "The Daily Show," Arthur's favorite things this month include Baby Mum-Mum rice crackers and our toy train set from IKEA (which we bought for Beatrice but she's never shown any interest in it). He also graduated to real baths (that is, in the tub instead of in the sink) and he loves bath toys and taking baths with his sister.
Unfortunately Arthur is still very small - sub-1st percentile in weight and yet to double his birth weight, he is only 14 lbs. (which, for those of you without babies, is really tiny). We're trying to fatten him up with yogurt, cottage cheese, avocados, you name it, but in the meantime he's still active, happy, and healthy.

Watching Beatrice watch "Charlie Brown"

Thursday, December 15, 2011

#15: Make a Gingerbread House


Yes, we cheated and used a pre-made gingerbread house kit to do all the hard work, but Beatrice loved decorating the house and then showing it off to all our subsequent visitors.








Monday, December 12, 2011

Beatrice's Imagination

Beatrice loves books, storytelling, and pretend play, and while she usually pretends to do everyday adult activities like feeding the baby or driving to work or "making cocktails," she also makes up some very unusual stories. A few of her recent observations:

1. Beatrice assured me the other day that the sun has yellow hair and takes baths while the moon has white hair and takes showers. The moon is an adult but the sun is a child that lives with her mother.

2. Looking out the car window last weekend, Beatrice said seriously, "The mountains are sad because their toys broke. But the clouds' mommy will fix the toys and then the mountains will be happy again."

3. After putting on a pair of butterfly wings Aunt Mina sent us, Beatrice shouted, "I'm a rabbit! . . . with wings."

Beatrice also loves making up songs. Last week she made up new lyrics to "The Wheels on the Bus." All her friends and family members took the bus to different fun locations: Rosemary went to the bookstore, Suzan and Naresh went to see whales, and so on. And Uncle James? Uncle James went to "pick up waste" in the backyard.

However even Beatrice cannot imagine a number bigger than nineteen, and while she certainly cannot count to nineteen, she uses the number to mean "a number uncountably large," as when Marie offered her two marshmallows and she countered, "I need nineteen."

Monday, December 05, 2011

A few more

great movie night photos from the very talented Amy Robb.







Sunday, December 04, 2011

#4: Host a Christmas Party

Today's activity was "Host a Christmas Party" so Beatrice invited some of her friends over to drink hot chocolate and eat cookies while watching an outdoor showing of "A Charlie Brown Christmas."






And in addition to her old friends like Jack, Miller, Ivy, Genevieve, Celestine, and Asher, she welcomed some new preschool/baby gym friends, Donovan, (the other) Ivy, and Finn.

Thursday, December 01, 2011

#1: Write a Letter to Santa Claus

This morning we opened the first advent calendar bag (I had told Beatrice about the calendar the night before and she was very, very excited about it despite having no idea what it was.) In fact, the very first thing she did when she opened her eyes this morning was demand to see the advent calendar. We pulled out the first activity and I told her we'd do the letter after nap time. All through breakfast, all the way to and from school she pondered what this letter might be: "I will tell him I love him," "I will tell him a story," "I will give him a dog and a coat."

Beatrice has some idea what letters are because she loves receiving cards and other mail from her grandparents (the Snoopy Thanksgiving from my parents was a particular favorite). And she more or less knows who Santa is.

And yet, naturally, there was some confusion. For awhile Beatrice thought the small paper slip inside the calendar bag was the letter to Santa, and she cried bitterly when she accidentally tore it while sleeping with it during her nap. "I ruined it!" she cried. (I had to print out another slip for her.) She also seemed to think that she was supposed to give gifts to Santa. And of course she confuses Christmas with Halloween and thinks it involves trick or treating and costumes. (Santa's costume, she explained, is a hat and a red jacket.)

We took her to our local Macy's where they have a Santa letter mailing station (for each stamped letter you send they donate $1 to charity) and we got down to letter-writing at last. Her first draft?

"Dear Santa,

Please."

After some coaxing, she continued:

"Dear Santa,

Please.

Thank you.

Dear Santa Claus,

I want Madeline. Arthur wants an owl.*

Books

Dinosaurs

Color cool

Bye-bye.

[P.S. - ] My name is Beatrice."

*These, of course, were their Halloween costumes.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Advent Calendar

This year instead of our usual advent calendar filled with candy I decided to assign a different holiday activity to each day (an idea I got from this blog). I used the same small printed bags I made last year but filled them with slips of paper.

Here's our list this year:


1. Write a letter to Santa Claus
2. Buy a new Christmas book
3. Buy a Christmas tree
4. Host a Christmas party
5. Drink hot chocolate
6. Visit Santa Claus
7. Hang Christmas stockings
8. Preschool Christmas party
9. Leave a Christmas treat out for squirrels and birds
10. Draw a Christmas picture
11. Bake Christmas cookies
12. Sing Christmas carols
13. Get Christmas books from the library
14. Donate a toy
15. Make a gingerbread house
16. Make Christmas cards
17. Buy a present for Arthur
18. Christmas breakfast
19. Buy a new Christmas ornament
20. Take a drive to see Christmas lights
21. Wrap a gift
22. Take a family trip*
23. Go visit penguins at the aquarium
24. Leave cookies and milk out for Santa

I made sure to assign "big" events to weekends and days when I'm not working and to schedule activities around parties, travel, etc. Someday when our kids are older we can also add new things like holiday concerts, the ballet, or ice skating. I'm really excited about this month.

*To Dallas, that is.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

Towards A Phylogenetics of Desserts

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny*

This year we celebrated Arthur's first Thanksgiving (and Beatrice's third) with Sam, Lilli, Travis, Monty, and dozens of other friends at the annual Caltech Thanksgiving party, now in its twelfth year.



Not a very good photo, but it does encapsulate just how much Beatrice loved walking around in Lilli's fuzzy slippers

We also took some side trips to visit my parents and sister, Jay Kruse and his family, and the Nigams.




All in all it was a great trip (even if Jeff's car did catch on fire) but I have to admit, I mostly enjoy Thanksgiving as the kick-off to Christmas.

*Or PHYLLOgeny! Get it? Never mind.

Oh, and here is the official Dessert Cladogram (the highlighted desserts were ones we baked and consumed in the name of Science).

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Project: Standing, Day Two



In a follow up to this post - like so many things babies do, Arthur's standing trick went from adorable to annoying in one day. Now he is standing constantly, holding on to sofas, chairs, low tables, or the ottoman, and then eventually letting go, falling backward, slamming the back of his head on the floor, and crying hysterically. But he will not stop doing it.






Monday, November 21, 2011

No one will ever believe me,

but I know what I saw.

At six months, two days old, Arthur stood up on his own*. Just now I was sitting on the sofa, beside the ottoman, wearing a long skirt that trailed to the ground. Arthur crawled up to me, grabbed my skirt, and climbed up it hand over hand until he was standing. Then he carefully transferred his hands from my skirt to the ottoman and stood there holding the ottoman, quite steady. He then pushed both hands off the ottoman and just stood, perfectly straight, not holding anything, for a few seconds before he fell over, hit his head, and starting bawling.

Of course, I couldn't move to get the camera because he was holding my skirt, and no one was home to see it except Beatrice, but he stood up! Hopefully next time I'll get it on film.


*This is technically the second time he's stood up unassisted like this, he did it first on Sunday, but that time he fell almost instantly.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Beatrice Sings

These videos are a couple of months old but I just came across them again while editing Arthur's post and wanted to share them (and yes, Beatrice is singing while sitting in Arthur's infant seat for some reason).




Saturday, November 19, 2011

Arthur, Month Six

Happy half-year anniversary, Arthur! You are one amazing baby!

It's hard to believe, but Arthur started crawling at 21 weeks! Unfortunately, he mostly uses this new-found skill to pursue his hobby of chewing on power cords, but we're proud of him all the same.







Here he's getting ready to peruse a copy of Better Homes and Gardens

And he can sit on his own now, too! He's also trying to stand - of course he can't really do it yet, but I respect his ambition.


This month Arthur enjoyed his first Halloween as well as visits from my parents, Aunt Gillian, Sam, Lilli, and Colleen.

He babbles and coos constantly and seems to really be trying to speak. He's very interactive, loves to charm strangers, and pretty much the smiley-est baby I've ever seen.



Unfortunately it was also a difficult month, as Arthur struggled with his first bad cold, then an ear infection, then another cold, plus all the upheaval of learning to crawl and a switch from exclusive nursing to formula. At times the result was extreme fussiness as well as very disrupted sleep, for him and me both. This evening fussiness was starting to creep into more and more of the day until it was more like 1-9pm instead of 4-7pm, but happily things seem to be returning to normal once again. In fact, he's even slept through the night all this past week.


The baby gym continues to be the highlight of his week.


Playing with Amy, Miller, and Ivy

Arthur just came back from his six-month checkup and we found that he is healthy, happy, and - way too small. From tenth percentile at birth his weight has fallen to below first percentile, or about 13 pounds at six months old. It's hard not to worry a bit, but he's clearly thriving in other respects. For the next month we'll be feeding him extra formula, calorie-dense foods like avocados, and yes, even adding olive oil into his baby food, all to see if we can get him out of that sub-zero ranking.





Enjoying the playmat

I suspect one reason he's so skinny is that he never stops moving. He's already wiggled/fallen out of all three of his baby seats/chairs, so I have no idea where to put him. He's even working on climbing out of his cosleeper every day during what is supposed to be nap time.

One of the few things he will sit still for, though, is the mirror baby. He continues to adore both his bath and his pre-bath play time on our bathroom floor, but now he's added the fun of kissing his own reflection in our full-length mirror.

Meanwhile, I am so proud of what a great sister Beatrice is turning out to be. All day long she talks to, with, or about Arthur, and she loves to show off for him and make him laugh. Whenever she does anything cool, like walk on her tiptoes or go high on the swings, she shouts, "Look at me, Arthur!" She sings to him and "reads" to him. She calls him "my baby" and often shouts out of nowhere, "I love my brother!" She warns her preschool friends to be gentle with him (ironically shoving one girl while shouting at her, "Be gentle!")




They love eating dinner together

Their favorite thing to do now is to play duets on the electronic keyboard. "It's duet time!" Beatrice shouts. Unfortunately it's hard to get a good photo of them doing it because neither child will stay still.







The other day - having been told a million times "we always hold hands in the parking lot" - she reached out and grabbed Arthur's hand in his stroller and said, "I'll hold Arthur's hand. Be safe, Arthur!"

Arthur waves to his babysitter Marie from underneath a chair
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