Elliot turned 1 today. Pretty amazing. He still seems like such a baby to me. Maybe that is because he sleeps like one, or at least like all of ours have slept.
We had a nice little party, which he fussed his way through. I will try to get some pics and maybe a video up soon.
What did we do on Valentine’s Day, you ask?
Well, this year, we broke with tradition (Panera), and went to my parent’s. It was a nice dinner, followed by a nice evening of putting the kids to bed and sitting on the couch.
Since we didn’t make it to Panera last night, we decided to go tonight. Last year things were a little crazy. Andrew was 3 and Mari was 1 1/2 last year. Things got a little chaotic, especially with Mari. This year was very peaceful. We even sat around for about 5 minutes after we were finished (Andrew was not actually finished, as he eats on his own schedule). It was a nice time.
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We thought he was passed it. We thought he had moved on. But, alas, Andrew has an ear infection. The cool thing is that he is old enough to tell us. Our Dr looked in her records, and he had not had an ear infection (that we knew of) for almost two years. He has been sick since Tues, with a fever, and cold symptoms.
Elliot is crazy. He really likes Susan (can you blame him?), and is not sleeping very well. Susan has had a hard time getting him to sleep during the day, so most weekdays he only has one nap, which probably contributes to his craziness. He loves to go outside and to look out the window.
Mari is Mari. She is doing well. As usual, it is a lot of highs and lows with Mari, where she is either laughing our crying – there is no in-between.
Susan is managing to stay sane through all this, somehow. She gives and gives-up a lot, so I hope that over the next few months, or year, Elliot will start to give her a break.
Later.
It’s been busy lately, too busy. This is mostly due to the fact that we all had the flu last week, dragging into this week, Susan still has the occasional fever, and there is still a lot of coughing and snot. Susan went to the Dr today, who said that she must still have the flu, because everything else checks out OK.
Maybe next year we will get some shots.
We just got back from a week-long trip to Des Moines. We headed out the day after Christmas and got home this evening. There was snow on the ground in Des Moines, which was fun. On the drive home I asked Susan how long she thought the snow would last and I can’t remember what we decided, but there was actually snow on the ground the whole drive home. Luckily the roads were fine.
We had a really fun trip, visiting Nick in St. Louis for an hour, and then spending a couple days with the Connors (Susan’s sister Mary, and family) in Kansas City, and then we headed up to Des Moines for a few days.
Now we are back, and need to get back into the daily grind.
We had a great Christmas. It seems like it gets better every year. Andrew and Mari had a great time.
Mari started potty-training on Sunday. She went the whole day without an accident. On Monday, she went the whole day without using the potty. The final straw was when she peed on me during dinner. We decided she wasn’t quite ready. This morning I had her in a diaper, and she said to me ‘I have to go poop.’ OK. So I guess she is potty-training. She made it all day today without an accident. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.
We got a little snow (/rain/sleet) a couple days back, and Andrew has been wanting to get out sledding, so today when I got home from work today, he, Mari and I headed down to the church playground (where there is a very little hill), and hit the slopes. Andrew had a great time, and I think he is finally getting to the age where he could spend a lot of time outside in the snow. Mari did well, even going down the hill a couple times by herself, but she was done in by a tandem ride where she and Andrew both fell off, him landing on her, her face landing in the snow. She did stay outside, but she was done sledding.
We came home to play in the back yard a bit. I taught Andrew the basics of frisbee golf while Mari swung. He actually hit his first target (which I bet was about 50 feet away) in just three tries, which was pretty good. We finished off our time outside by enjoying a fresh round of ‘snow cookies’, with the kids delighting in the taste of stale snow.
Last night was a mess. The kids were tired & crabby, and on different schedules. Andrew cried and whined his way through dinner. Elliot skipped his afternoon nap so he was a fuss. Mari did not skip her nap, so while the boys were asleep by 7:30, Mari was an hour later.
Tonight was one of those nights when things just come together. We had a nice dinner, with all of us sitting at the table for about 1/2 hour enjoying ourselves. Holly stopped by after dinner with some advent calendars, which the kids (& Susan) loved, and will continue to love up until Christmas. After she left we hung out for about half an hour, listening to some nice Christmas music and playing. Before bed we read Todd Parr’s Peace Book (The Peace Book, is the title), which I love, and the kids also enjoy. We were upstairs for bed by 7:30 and all the kids were asleep in a timely, relaxing manner. Nice.
We just got back from a fun trip to Des Moines for Thanksgiving, and to see our new niece/cousin, Hope. It was a great time and it went very quickly. I hope to get some pics up soon.