William, Month Two

Happy two-month birthday, William!

William's big accomplishment this month was learning to smile, at six weeks and one day.  He smiles often but unpredictably, so it's hard to capture on film, but our friend Michael got this photo of him smiling at a party at Kjerstin's house.  Sometimes he will stare very intently at someone's face, with a smile in his eyes, and start trying to work his mouth into a smile.  You can see him sort of twist and wiggle his lips around, sometimes for a minute or two, before he opens his mouth in a grin - so it's still a work in progress.

Smiling with Zoe

William has also started making his first non-crying sounds. The other day, while smiling, he looked at me and said, "Aye-you." 

Keep up the intensity, Kumar!

At his one-month appointment the pediatrician described William as "intense," and he really is.  When he is awake he will stare at things with an almost panicked need to figure them out - I described it to Mina as the look you would give a bomb you were trying to defuse.  At first I was a little concerned by his fixation on staring at things (especially lights) but now that he's discovered smiling and interacting with others, he seems a little more well-rounded and not quite so obsessed.

Newborn clothes outgrown already

The hardest thing about having William so far is that I feel sad in advance about him growing up.  (And he's growing quickly - he's already outgrown all his newborn clothes, something his siblings didn't do for months.)  I love having infants around and whenever I have a baby in the house, I wish again that I had a baby in the house forever.

Baby feet:

It helps that William is an easy baby.  He sleeps through the night and spends most of the day happily looking around or dozing in his seat.  Unfortunately he gets fussy in the evenings and pretty much demands to be held from around 4-8pm, which makes dinner difficult.  Not to mention that in order to sleep through the night he has to eat near continuously all evening.  But I can't complain - feeding him from 7-9pm beats feeding him from 3-5am.

William has had a more peaceful infancy so far than Arthur did.  Both Beatrice and Arthur treat him gently, and they both clearly love them, but they are mostly too busy with one another to pay him much attention.  Which means he isn't constantly poked, prodded, and attacked like Arthur was by his sister.  I worry a little that he'll feel left out when he's older because B and Arthur are so close, but at least for now it means he gets almost as much attention as a first baby, with far less bruising than his brother had.

 

 

 

 

 

Stephanie sent me this personalized infant bath robe and it's my favorite thing in the world:

 

Dev and William:

 

 

This man has three children.

Last night Arthur asked me, "Is William our baby?"
"Yes."
"And he will always be our baby. Someday he will be a grown-up but he will still be our baby."

Boo Goes Missing (Again)

Happily reunited with his "kid"

Today Arthur and I went to Target to pick up a few things, then walked across a large parking lot to Lowe's.  I was trying to pick the right floor wax when Arthur said, "Where is Boo?"

Of course, he had left Boo at Target. 

"I'm scared," Arthur said quietly.

I picked him up so we could walk faster and we rushed back to Target.  He clung to me like an infant and whispered, "I love Boo."

And then, after a few moments, "I need Boo, I guess*."

After a worried search Arthur found Boo himself, sitting on the magazine rack where Arthur had left him. 

Usually Arthur pretends to be Boo's "daddy" but when we got back to the car he started breastfeeding him.  "I am also sometimes his mommy," he explained.

Arthur always seems so mature and smart and self-assured, it's hard to forget he's only two and a half . . .

* Arthur always affixes "I guess" to the end of statements of strong feeling.  "I am angry, I guess," or "I'm scared, I guess," or "I missed you, I guess."

Best of Winter

Personally I can't wait for winter to end.  We've been sick since January with a series of colds, flus, fevers, ear and eye infections. 

But it hasn't been all bad.  We also had a lot of fun this winter, including family visits, trips to go tubing in the snow, Christmas, and of course, William.

Outside at a street fair on Magnolia Boulevard

Eating dinner at Century Dragon

Helping out at Target



Arthur insisted on wearing a tie to the indoor playground.

 Science experiments:

 Like always, the kids played a lot of dress-up:

Beatrice wants to get married in this outfit.

Beatrice performing her variety show, which included songs, skits, dancing, and crowd work. She rehearsed it for five hours.

Arthur dancing in the show

 

Showing me his ring

This winter we also took the kids to see Frozen in the theater twice (the second time for a special sing-along edition) and it made a huge impression on them both, especially Arthur.  The kids enact scenes from the movie all the time - usually Beatrice is Elsa and Arthur is Ana.  Arthur wants to be a princess (mostly because they have "so many outfits") and he loves belting out the song's two dramatic ballads, "For the First Time in Forever" and "Let It Go."  (He also asks me to forward the movie to specific outfits in specific scenes.)


Singing "Let It Go"

And again.

I can't wait for this spring: a visit from the Spindlers, camping, girls' weekend, Easter activities, and several major renovation projects.

Happy Valentine's Day!



Valentines for Aunt Gillian and for Rosemary and Louis

At least one person in our family has been sick every day this month, and so Valentine's Day passed this year without a lot of celebrating.  But we did host a little valentine-making party at our house on Thursday for Milo, Genevieve, Celestine, David, Alexis, Miller, and Ivy. The kids ate pizza and cupcakes and made valentines with stickers, puff balls, washi tape, stick-on jewels, doilies, and more.

 

Alexis adds the finishing touches to her valentine for Beatrice

Megan in our empty living room*

    

And of course the kids passed out valentines in school on Friday during their class party.

Stuffing Valentine's treat bags

Valentines for the Red and Yellow rooms at school

 

Surveying the haul after school

And Dev gave me my favorite valentine ever.

On my bathroom mirror

Happy Valentine's Day!

* Why is our living room empty? Because of exciting renovations, of course! which I will post about next week ...

A Doctor Who Pushes

I know it's silly to try and write down all the funny things the kids say each day, but I can't help but want to catalogue some of their best quotes, especially those that illustrate their personalities so well.  And so without further ado...

ARTHUR

Arthur asked me for some cookies and I told him there weren't any.

Arthur: Check the cookie jar.
Summer: I did, there aren't any cookies.
Arthur: Then why don't you make me some?
Summer: Mommy is sick, she doesn't feel like baking right now.
Arthur: Is Daddy sick?
Summer: No.
Arthur: Then Daddy can make me some cookies.

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Arthur, getting ready to go to an event at the public library: "Will everyone like me? Will they think I'm beautiful?"

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Arthur has started using "pretending" as an excuse to do things he isn't allowed to do - for instance, I'll tell him he's not allowed to stand on the furniture and he'll say, "But I'm pretending to be a bird!"

The other day I told him not to pull on Beatrice's arm: "But I'm a pulling bear!"
And after pushing his sister: "I'm a doctor who pushes."

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"I want a monkey as my pet, I want to buy a wife, I want to drink paint."

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"When I grow up I want to be a daddy, a mommy, a paleontologist, and a baby."

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Arthur is such a good liar he sometimes fools me.  For example, the other day he was complaining that he had dropped his stick while sitting in the backseat.

Summer: I'm sorry, Arthur, I can't reach it while I'm driving, I'll get it for you at our destination.
Arthur: Okay, Mommy. [A minute later] Mommy, I had a potty accident!
Summer: You did?
Arthur: I did, Mommy! I had an accident! Stop the car!

Summer pulls over and discovers he's perfectly clean.

Summer: You didn't have an accident.
Arthur: Oh, that's right, I guess. But since you're not driving, you can hand me my stick.

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Beatrice was looking at a book Arthur wanted, so he turned to me and said loudly, "Mommy, I love Beatrice. She is so nice, she always shares, even books..."

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Arthur is still the most charming, smoothest talker you'll ever meet, always telling me that I'm beautiful, etc. He likes to say to me, "I'm through and through for you, Mommy."
And at Christmas, "Mommy, you are my present."

No wonder no one can say no to him...

BEATRICE

Looking at an early ultrasound of William as a tiny white dot: "It looks like you swallowed a star."

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One of Beatrice's jobs is keeping an eye on William in the backseat when I'm driving.

Beatrice: Mommy, William spit up!
Summer: What does it look like?
Beatrice: It looks like a snowstorm.
Summer: I mean, is it clear, or bubbly, or what?
Beatrice: It looks like snow fall.  It looks like sick clouds.

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Explaining the game "Waterfish Tag" to Arthur: "No, no, it's not Tag, it's different! In Tag you say, 'You're it!' In Waterfish Tag you say 'You're waterfish!'"

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After sneezing: "Excuse me! My white blood cells don't like to work."

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I held out a box and told Beatrice, "I have a present for you!"
Beatrice (delightedly): It's a box!

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I told the kids they could each bring one plastic dinosaur to the park. Beatrice emerged from her bedroom with two: "This one is for me, and this one is in case I meet a friend."

Then she decided she would hold the dinosaur behind her back, introduce herself to the friend first, and then whip the dinosaur out from behind her back and present it as a surprise. On the drive to the park she practiced the long introductory speech she was going to make to her new friend. 

Once we got to the park, she went up to another little girl, stood in front of her with the dinosaur behind her back, launched into her speech, and then thrust the dinosaur in the little girl's face. The little girl took the dinosaur and walked away without saying a word. Poor Beatrice.

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Drawing a picture of unicorns running: "These unicorns are not running away from predators; they are running for exercise."

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Discussing one of Dr. Seuss' fictitious animals: "I wouldn't want a Yink for a pet because he would drink all our ink.  On the other hand, they are imaginary."

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Leaning over William, she shouts loudly, "Dinosaurs don't have tummy time!"

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Beatrice also wrote a long (long) Christmas carol this year called "Christmas Jellyfish Sleepover."

LACMA NexGen

One of the kids' favorite things to do is go to LACMA, particularly on Sundays when they have their special children's programming from 12:30 to 3:30pm.  Every week there are art projects set up in the courtyard where the kids can learn about works inside and practice everything from pottery to pen and ink drawings (and with real artist-quality materials, too).  There's even a "Toddler Tarp" for the youngest kids.  And thanks to the museum's NexGen program admission is free, too.

 

Beatrice has extremely traditional tastes when it comes to art - she loves Renaissance, Baroque, and Neo-Classical styles, and she labels anything contemporary "not art."  Arthur prefers non-Western art, especially Indian and Chinese.  And William? Well, yesterday we took him into James Turrell's Ganzfeld APANI where he relieved himself mightily, though whether that means he liked it or not, I can't say.

 

Chris Burden's Metropolis II is not, in Beatrice's opinion, art.

This is art.

Beatrice's favorite artwork: Psyche Obtaining the Elixir of Beauty from Proserpine, Charles-Joseph Natoire, circa 1735

Arthur's favorite artwork: Elephant Combat, from Rajasthan, circa 1725

Arthur spends a lot of time speculating as to why the elephants would be fighting.  His current theory is that one spit water on the other.