Wrinkles for the Brain

Thaddeus especially enjoyed the watermelon, and used it as a learning experience on the subject of how liquids work. Apparently, you can't eat watermelon juice with a fork.


Maybe I should be directing him a little more, though...

Watermelon Eating Technique

So I cut up one of the watermelons that I grew in the garden and it was delicious!

Bedtime Snuggles

Thaddeus is such a snuggler. Tonight we were having a hard time getting him to bed and I think it was because he was just a little low on snuggling. He had a lot of good play time with me today and it was a great day, but when Nathan went to put him to bed and I went to put Callia to bed, Thaddeus just cried and cried like we were killing him. I put Callia to bed, which is not a short process, and as I came down her stairs and still heard Thad crying, I decided to see if Nathan needed any backup. I opened the door and he was leaning over the crib rubbing Thad's back and trying to get him to lay down, but Thad was just a tearful, boogery, sobbing mess. So with Nathan's permission I picked him up and held him. Then when Nathan was going to leave the room Thad was very upset about that, so Nathan stayed in the room and paced around. We went through several rounds of throwing the blanket on the floor and fussing and getting put back in the crib and crying and being picked back up and crying a little less and then getting mad about something and starting over. I think it takes a while once he gets upset for him to realize that I am in for the long haul and I am going to be there for him as long as he needs me. At some point Nathan decided to go ahead and leave which temporarily made things worse. But at the end of the next "round" when I picked him up, he snuggled into my shoulder with his blanket, didn't scream when I sat down in the rocking chair, and we rocked together comfortably. I kissed the top of his little head and the back of his little hand which was on my shoulder. He pushed the back of his hand back onto my lips for another kiss. Then again and again, and I must have kissed his hand two dozen times. Then I started kissing his little fuzzy head again and must have kissed his head a few dozen times as well. I squeezed him and he "sang" a song that went "uuuuUUUHhh....uuuuUUUHhh....dada..dada...dada..daDA...daduuuuhda" and rubbed his face on me and got a few more kisses on top of his head. After about ten minutes he was ready to be put in bed. He didn't seem any closer to being asleep than he was when we started, but I guess he had been thoroughly snuggled and was secure enough to lay down and try to sleep.

Summer Reading

Callia is going to be starting Kindergarten soon and we have gone to the library to get books from the summer reading list for rising kindergartners. Corduroy was on the list and I remember it being one of my favorites when I was little!

No Pictures!

Callia has not been wanting to have her picture taken lately. Here is a good one of her playing with Play Doh:

Story of a Morning

I was about to send Nathan an email about how my morning was going and I thought to myself "There's no need to bother him with this, I'll just blog it and it'll probably be funny later".

So Thaddeus is cutting at least three teeth at once right now. I'm not sure about the top but as he was screaming yesterday I saw two molars and one of the second incisors partially through on the bottom. So he has been a little grumpy, especially in the morning, yesterday and today.

When I got him out of his crib I needed to go to the bathroom so I put him down on the floor. He found a flower pot that he had been playing with the other day while I was cleaning my room. He had been putting some of Callia's necklaces in and out of it very carefully as he sat on the floor. But this morning for no apparent reason he threw it on the bathroom floor and it shattered. So I had Callia carry him into his room and close the door while I cleaned it up. Of course he screamed. But then I saw his crocheted blanket, which he had left in the hall, dissappear under the (rather wide) crack in the door, and the crying stopped.

Then, who knows why, but he was mad at his juice this morning. He took one sip and handed it back to me. I inspected it and there was nothing wrong with it so I gave it back to him, and he threw it on the floor. I picked it up and checked the lid to see if it had loosed, and set it down on the dining room floor saying he could have it if he wanted. He went and sat down beside it while I was getting something for them to eat for breakfast, and Callia sounded the alarm "Mom! Thaddeus just spilled all of his juice!" His pajamas were soaked and there was a large pool around him on the floor. He crawled out of the wettest area as I mopped it up with a towel, then I stripped his clothes off of him. Then of course he needed a bath but I decided to just use wipes.

I suppose the story is a little anti-climatic, but as a mom who woke up hoping that I'd be able to get ahead on the chores around the house instead of just keeping up, it was a pretty crazy and discouraging first fifteen minutes of the day. We'll see how the rest of it goes. Hopefully he has it out of his system but that's not usually the way these things go.

Idlewild with Jeff and Mary

We went to Idlewild amusement park for children with Jeff and Mary during a visit to Grandpa Mike's family up in Johnstown, PA. The kids had a great time and Callia really hit it off with her second cousin Abby. Aren't they cute?