Life in the Boonies

The boys are growing too fast for me to keep this blog up with them.  We have now moved to our new house in Anacortes, WA, spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with our extended family here in WA, and celebrated Timmy’s first birthday.

Timmy took his first steps in the new house the day we put up our Christmas tree.  I will never forget the moment as I put him down on the floor to go do something and from the corner of my eye I saw him inch over toward Elmo chair (at least two tiny steps) and then plunge into it like a soft pillow.  It was too much to hope for that I can capture that first moment on film like I did for Frank.  After many attempts, finally we stole some good footage so it is now properly documented.  Of course by then Timmy walked half way across the room with many very sturdy steps, while holding a pencil.

Now Timmy has 7 teeth.  Four on top came out at the same time and a third one on the bottom just recently made its appearance.  We’re down to one nursing in the morning and sometimes that is not enough for Timmy so he screams and screams until we give him some water or whole milk.  Thirsty little fellow.  We eventually figured it out.  So did Frank as he said in the morning word for word “Don’t worry Timmy.  You can have some milk milk as soon as mommy gets up.”  Just yesterday Timmy had a full hour screaming fit upon waking from his afternoon nap and no one can figure out what he wanted and nothing we offered satisfied him.  It was totally like a tantrum.  He was on the floor kicking and screaming and anything we offered he flung across the room.  He also got send to his room and that didn’t do much good either.  Today he was my little angel again.  Often I see both Frank and Timmy walking around playing.  Can’t believe I now have TWO toddlers!

There is no doubt Timmy is a carnivore.  He vacuums up meat, but eats very little carb unless it is in the form of biter biscuit.  Even then he frequently throws it on the floor first and then retrieves it later and eats it while playing.  He used to eat some of my bagel but now he has learned (likely from Frank who licks off the peanut butter on his bread) that he can just lick off the cream cheese and throw the rest on the floor.  He did manage to eat a bunch of pasta that one night but it seems to be a nontypical incident.  Timmy babbles alot.  Several times he said “Wa Da” at the precise moment a new sound or thing came in so I’m interrupting it as his “What’s that?”  Sometimes I can’t tell if it is Timmy or Frank talking.  Timmy likes to put things in and take it back out.  He likes to climb into boxes.  Then Frank would push him around and say Timmy is in a ferry boat.

Timmy learns from Frank.  Frank hides his head when daddy comes when he doesn’t like daddy.  Timmy now does that too.  He turns his head away and buries it in my shoulder.  Frank does the digger motion with his arms when he wants something.  Or grabs it in the air and pulls it toward himself.  Timmy now does that when he wants something.  Timmy claps when Frank claps.  When Timmy is hooting, Frank can usually distract him.  There are moments when both of them are playing nicely for a long time and I have to check on them to make sure they are not up to no good.

Frank continues to amaze me with his imagination, words, and grownupness.  We do lots of pretend play with his playdoh, stuff animals, blocks, cars, picnic set, etc. We played buying stuff from the store and Frank played on the cash register and said he was working on his computer to make money (like daddy).  Then he got the money out and put a bunch of things from the farm set into a basket and came to me to pay for them.  Then he dumps it in his room and refills the basket with more stuff.  Several days we played having a picnic every moment we had.  Frank would make food that daddy cooked up the day before and tell me to set the table.  We invite all the stuffed animals to come.  Then he washes the dishes afterwards.  Later we used playdoh and made all sorts of stuff to put on the plates.  And Frank would say it’s not ready yet I have to put it in the oven.  Then he says, it’s very hot.

He is mostly very nice to Timmy, especially since Timmy has all the new cool toys from Timmy’s birthday.  Frank loves the new house, the new library, the new park.  We had extreme snow here right through Christmas and everyone had a great time playing in the snow and sledding down the street into the cul-de-sac.  Frank met several of the neighborhood kids and he talked about them nonstop.  One time we popped the balloon that goes on the snowman sled toy and Frank cried hysterically.  He said “mommy I’m crying because I’m sad because my purple balloon broke.”  He was soooo genuinely sad, I had to stop myself from laughing and telling him that it is no big deal.  Frank loves Lucky Charms for breakfast.  More precisely, he loves the Charms.  I have to force him to eat the rest of the cereal with bribes and threats.  He also takes forever to eat.  On the potty training front, Frank is fully pee trained.   He wears the diaper for naptime and bedtime.  If I get to him as soon as he wakes up from nap, we save another diaper.  He will only poop in the diaper.  He did have a few successes in the toilet in the past under duress.  Since he consistently tells me he wants to poop in diaper we are going with the flow.  Now I put the diaper on him and he will go into the potty and turn the fan and light on and tell me when he is done.  Then I change him back to underwear and he will flush the poop away.  We are pushing him gently with the bribe of his birthday party.  He is not to have one until he poops in the potty.  Timmy’s birthday presents were slightly extravagant and more geared toward Frank as a motivation factor for his desire of a birthday party with balloons and presents.   With three more weeks to go, we’ll see if anything happens.

Some reason this new house makes this whole family sleep in later. Maybe it is darker here in the morning, maybe it is quieter since we are in a cul-de-sac but both kids are up around 7:30 most days.  If they go to bed later due to a late nap sometimes our mornings don’t start til pass 8.  And that throws off everything since Nat has to start work by 9 and I need to have my shower before I can start my morning. It’s realy nice to sleep in finally.  Frank still takes one nap in the afternoon but he does fine skipping it a few days in a row too.  So when we have things to do and people to play with, I let him skip it with the agreement that other days when I say he need to take it, he complies.  It has been working out rather well.