3 Months

What is it about this time of year that makes the weeks seem to pass so quickly? It doesn't help that Ari has the audacity to keep getting bigger on me. He is already starting to fit into his 3-6 months clothes. It seems like every time I do the laundry I am packing away outfits that he's out-grown. Exactly how much he's grown in the last month is a bit of a mystery since he won't be seen by his doctor until he is 4 months old. But by the number of rolls on his thighs I am confident saying that he is eating well and getting bigger by the day. 

Despite the fact that he is gaining weight and eating better than ever, he is having a harder time winding down to go to sleep these days. In fact, Ari seems quite resentful of whoever tries to get him to sleep. At the mere sight of his swaddler he begins to squawk at us in protest. When we start to rock him he defiantly spits his binky across the room with impressive force and further expresses his disdain. At this point he usually fixes his gaze on something with in view and stares at it with such intensity that you would think his very life depended on not blinking. To combat this maneuver we resort to evil tricks like spinning around in a circle while we hold him just to break his stare. The second his eyes lose their focus, they begin to close against his will. This makes him really irate, which leads to a wide range of verbal protests that bring a feral cat to mind. It's really charming--especially during his witching hours which usually fall between 9 and 11 PM...when Yo and I are already exhausted.

I definitely have my share of days where I feel like the months of sleep deprivation have finally caught up to me. But Ari tends to be such a good sport during the day that I can hardly hold it against him. The majority of our days are centered around entertaining Kai and Ari is usually good at just tagging along--catching little cat naps in his car seat or stroller or carrier throughout the day.

It also doesn't hurt that he's really cute. So much so that I can't help gushing over him every time I see him...and I see him a lot.

And if his natural cuteness weren't enough, he knows just how to win my affection with his constant chatter and endless smiles. It doesn't hurt that he is well on his way to being another momma's boy either. Whenever he hears my voice the charming starts--he raises his eyebrows expressively and ooh and aahs and gurgles and laughs at me. And his smiles continue to be abundant and of my favorite variety--open-mouthed and ear-to-ear.

Okay, he likes his pappa, too...

But since I'm the one getting up all night with him (and also happen to be the author of this blog), I'm still claiming preferential treatment.

When it comes to Kai and Ari, it is clear that Kai's affection for his brother is growing by the day and that Ari, at the very least, is extremely tolerant of his brother's affections. Kai wants to hold Ari and stick binkies in his mouth and push his stroller and hold his hand. Ari has decided he doesn't like his car seat recently, which often leads to long bouts of crying when we're in the car. Kai always tries to comfort him saying, "It's okay, Ari. I'm right here. It's okay."

Kai also loves to sing to Ari.  In the following picture he's singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" substituting "up the baby's head" for "up the water spout."

As Ari gets bigger the resemblance between the two boys is becoming even more apparent.

With an exuberant, hands-on brother constantly bouncing around, it's been hard to fit tummy time into our routine, but I've been making a concerted effort this past month. He is not a fan (what baby is?), but I can tell that it is paying off. He's finally holding his head pretty steady and he is getting better at lifting his chest off the ground with his arms.

It's only a matter of time before he is using that new found leverage to roll over. And while it takes several months to build up to this significant accomplishment, it seems like others will follow too rapidly... sitting up, eating solids, crawling....

Then again, he is still pretty little.

Or that chair is really big?

Either way, this guy is pretty perfect and I can't imagine my life without him.

Happy birthday to me!

With back-to-back visits from my sister, in-laws and my dear friend Rhonda, I felt like I had celebrated my birthday 4 times over by the time the actual day rolled around. Shannon and I did some pre-birthday shopping (Yo's present to me) and Rhonda spoiled me on my birthday eve with thoughtful gifts from her and Kai.

On the morning of my birthday I got to open a thoughtful card that my in-laws had kindly hand delivered. It carried a reminder of a bank account that they are contributing money to in lieu of gifts to assist with the cost of future trips to Norway. I couldn't ask for anything better! And along those same lines, I also had an upcoming trip to Miami to look forward to at Thanksgiving time courtesy of my parents generosity. (I can't wait!) Not to mention, I got to wake up to this cuteness...

What can I say? I'm a lucky girl.

After all that spoiling all I wanted for my birthday was to have a low key day with Yo and my two favorite boys and I got just what I wanted.

Overall it was a great day. We decided to do a birthday lunch because it's easier with the kids' schedules. On the way to the car, Yo sneak attacked me with a can of silly string, which led to an all out silly string brawl in the front yard. I'm pretty sure our neighbors think we're crazy.

Then Yo and Kai surprised me when they produced birthday hats which they insisted we wear at the restaurant through lunch. I'm pretty sure everyone at the Outback thought we were crazy, too, but it was worth it to see how excited Kai was about our "birthday party."

As the birthday girl I, of course, got to wear the biggest hat.

When we got home from lunch the boys gave me a wonderful birthday surprise... they both took nice long naps. So I took advantage and watched as much college football as I wanted. The Gator's delivered their own birthday present with another SEC win. Thank you very much! And I even managed to take a birthday nap myself--with my favorite little napping buddy, Ari, wrapped up in my arms. It was divine.

After such a big lunch none of us had much room for dinner, but it wouldn't be a birthday without a birthday cake. (Let's just say, Yo learned that lesson the hard way our first year of marriage.) This year he went all out, surprising me with a divine pralines and cream cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes. It was as pretty as it was yummy.

Yo was only slightly annoyed when I insisted that he and Kai sing me happy birthday before I'd let them cut into the cake. (As Yo pointed out, Kai had already sung Happy Birthday to me at least a dozen times throughout the day. But tradition is tradition and what the birthday girl says, goes.)

Although I appreciated the cake and other little touches that Yo put into the day, my favorite part of my birthday was stealing as many birthday hugs and kisses as I could from this guy....

And this guy...

I went to bed one happy gal.

The next morning I woke up to find a random pimple on my chin. Nothing like a zit to reassure you that 33 really isn't all that old after all.

It's not easy being 2

In a few short weeks Kai is going to be 3. It's a good thing, because I have thought of him as a 3 year old for the last few months. He just seems so much older than his friends who recently turned 2. And every day he constantly reminds me that he is a big boy and can do everything all by himself. It's as endearing as it is aggravating. As you can imagine, it takes a lot longer to accomplish every day tasks like getting dressed, brushing teeth, putting on shoes, climbing into a car seat. There are times that I want to jump in to speed up the process, but I am almost always stopped by the look of determination on Kai's face. And when he does accomplish the task at hand he just beams with pride.

When he can't manage to do something for himself, on the other hand, it usually ends in a massive meltdown. So in this world that is not designed with little hands in mind, you can imagine that I get to deal with more than my fair share of tears these days. Sometimes I feel like I am on a roller coaster of Kai's emotions as the transition from elation to despair can return to elation again just as quickly. It can be exhausting and trying, but I know that this is all a necessary part of my little guy getting bigger.

On the nights that I am the one who puts Kai to bed, I spend some time talking to him about all of things that he did during the day that made me proud of him. When we used to have these conversations Kai would listen intently as I listed his accomplishments and smile from ear to ear feeling so pleased with himself. Now when I tell Kai, "I really liked the way you shared your toys today and played so nicely with your friends," Kai will usually correct me and say, "But I didn't share my garbage truck and I was not nice to my friends."

Sometimes he tries to tell me, "I'm a bad guy, mommy."

So we talk about how good guys (even the best guys) have bad moments and how we can handle those moments better the next time.

As a parent it is easy to want to take credit when your kid is behaving well and to deny culpability when he is behaving badly (ok, atrociously), but I've come to accept that I am not accountable in the least for my child's good or bad behavior...I'm just accountable for how I respond to it. So I try to turn those tantrums into teaching moments. I also realize that while I hope the lessons that I am teaching Kai will sink in one day and help him grow-up to be a good man, he is more often teaching me lessons that will help me to be a better woman.

So yes, the twos are hard, and I don't expect the threes to be any better, but I am grateful everyday to be the mom to this little monster.

I'm also grateful that little monsters start life as little and sweet as this guy is...

And not as two-year-olds...or worse...teenagers!

2 Months

Here's the 2 month update for my little Ari:

He continues to be one of the most smiley babies I have ever seen. And when he smiles, his eyes turn into these perfect little crescents that are nearly swallowed by his abundant cheeks. It melts my heart.

My friends comment all the time on how much Ari looks like his brother. Based on the pictures, it's pretty indisputable. There is definitely a likeness between Ari and Kai and Kai and Yo. But I'm still holding out hope that my genes might have won out on a couple of features. So far I'm claiming his ears, his pointy chin, and that little mouth... but time will tell. When he was an infant, everyone thought Kai looked just like me...and then he hit about 6 months and turned into a miniature of Yo. This one will probably turn on me as well....traitors.

In case you didn't guess, Ari is in both pictures on the left and Kai is in both pictures on the right. The funny thing about these pictures, is that while the boys clearly look a lot alike, Ari was about 6 weeks old in these pictures, whereas Kai was just over 4 months old. Poor Kai was a waif for the first 3.5 months of his life. Ari, on the other hand, is wasting no time chunking up. At his 2 month check-up he was 13 lbs 3 oz. He is already fitting into his 3 months clothes... clothes that Kai was wearing at 5 months.

In the last month Ari has added lots of cooing to his repertoire of sounds. I've gotten quite a few recordings of his cute little voice, but I need to edit them before I post them on here... mostly because I sound like an idiot on all of these recordings. I will not be surprised if Ari's first words are, "For the love. Stop talking to me like I'm a moron, Mom."

If I had to describe Ari in one word, I would say that he is sweet. He is calm and cuddly and has a sweetness about him that I hope doesn't go away as he gets older.

One of Ari's most endearing qualities is that his face has a slight asymmetry to it that is exaggerated when he smiles. His right eye squints more than his left one.

A more comical discovery that we've made about this little guy is that he's prone to thumb jam. That's right, I said thumb. One day I pried his his little fist open only to discover a rather substantial build-up of goo in the crease of his hand. Cleaning out that crease has now become a daily ritual.

 My dad asked me just yesterday what new tricks Ari has. At two months I can't say that he's hit a ton of significant milestones (at least not many that anyone other than his mother would get excited about), but he really is growing and changing every day. While I love seeing his personality emerge, I also want to slow down all his growing. I know that this the baby stage is going to pass too quickly and I am going to miss it when it's over. We love you, Ari!

When it rains it pours

As you know from my last post, my sister was recently out here for a visit. Well, she wasn't our only guest. Yo's parents were actually out here visiting at the same time. While overlapping visits made for a full house, it was really fun getting to see my sister interact with my in-laws and vice versa. It made me wish that we lived closer to both of our families.

The downside of all of those guests--We had to get a little bit creative about sleeping arrangements to accommodate everyone. Shannon was a good sport and ended up sleeping in the bottom bunk of Kai's beds. Kai was overjoyed with this arrangement. My in-laws got to enjoy a mattress on the floor of our office. It's a small room, but has it's own bathroom.

A benefit of having two sets of visitors at the same time is that we were able to break off into smaller groups to do things during the day and there was always someone available to help watch one or the other of my boys. So while my sister and I were watching bad TV, Yo was playing shopping buddy for his mom at the outlets. And while Shannon and I were out for a celebratory birthday dinner, Yo was picking up shirts from Costco and Indian takeout with his dad.

But my favorite memories of the week were the activities that we did all together. We took advantage of the cooler weather at the beginning of the trip and headed up to Half Moon Bay for a morning of Autumn festivities at Lemos Farm.

It was my first time there so I wasn't sure what to expect. The farm was a little bit more condensed and kitschy than I thought it would be, but I think worth the trip...at least once every Halloween season.

We bought Kai a pass so he could ride all the rides he wanted to...and this was the highlight of his day. Of course it was.

Looking at these pictures, I'm thinking my flesh colored jacket was a bad idea. But at least I wasn't cold. Poor Shannon resorted to using one of Ari's wraps to keep warm. She rocked that bunny pattern.

Guess I shouldn't be too critical about Kai's idea of fun.

For some reason he was very serious about his pony ride. Shannon and I bought passes just so we could ride a pony, too. Only to find out that they have a weight limit of 60 lbs. Nothing like finding out it would take two ponies to haul your butt around to make you feel awesome.

We all took turns pushing sleeping beauty around in his chariot.

Bestefar demonstrating for Kai just how much fun a pony ride can be. In fact, Bestefar is always up for fun.

This guy...not so much

Leave it to a pair of Europeans to make a kitschy pumpkin patch look so elegant. How do they do it? I think it has something to do with their ability to wear bright colors and tie their scarfs just so.

We finally got a few smiles out of Kai when he got to operate this excavator. Hopefully now that he's realized this dreams at
a young age, he can go on to become a dentist like I planned.

The second half of the week the temperatures sky-rocketed into the 90s so we took advantage and headed to Santa Cruz for an afternoon on the boardwalk. Apparently we didn't get the memo that the boardwalk isn't open on a random weekday afternoon in October. Go figure. So instead of riding rides, we took a leisurely (sweat-inducing) stroll down the beach to see the sea lions, then ate some ice cream, jumped over a few waves, and made the long drive back home.

Was it worth it?
Yes, if only for this picture...

Shannon has been gone for almost a week now and Stein and Hilde head back to Norway on Tuesday morning. Luckily my dear friend Rhonda is coming for a week-long visit just as they are leaving.  Bring on round 2 of house guest fun!