Thumper 2.0

In twenty four hours our beloved Thumper will be two years old.

Have I told you what he's up to?

He is a total dancing queen. We listened to "I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee" about 149 times between TX and iowa. Other favorites are ABCD (sung on his OWN, no thank you, mommy), Jungle Book music, Dan Zanes, Eidelwies (sung as sweet lalo) and Elmo's song. He taps his toes but really loves to swing his hips and dash his arms about.

"abyater?" is "maybe later?" he can take a "no" to almost anything as long as he also gets a "maybe later." Of course, then he follows up. "aternap?" Yes, baby. After nap.

He loves a mess. Art is a fine byproduct. Or bread. Or nothing. But the mess. The mess, itself, is the thing. (btw, check this out for some Thumper in action pics.)

He loves bath time and naked time and cuddle time and dinner time. He is possessive about everything (as he frequently has to scrap to keep what is his.) He is unendingly sweet and frequently bonkers.

We are doing a train theme for his birthday party next week.

He has got blue, yellow and red. Other colors are still confusing.

There's lots of stuff that I did, unthinkingly, with Khubz that I need to remember to do with him. Like finger plays, "where is thumbkin?" all that stuff.

He seeks Khubz out for guidance. "how can I get to the cookies on the counter?" and they collaborate. He doesn't want to go to bed without her. I remember seeing the kinship between Noise and Funk, how they looked to eachother as a reference point for home. Thumper and Khubz have that now. It fills me with warmth.

When we were packing up the van in texas Scully and I were dragging suitcases through the living room and out the front door. Thumper grabs Scully's laptop and drags it along (sized like a suitcase to him) saying "I gotit! I got it!" waving away anyone in his path and then hollering, "I'm coming!!"

He pet the horse in Texas and it shook its head at him, razzing its lips and delighting him to no end. When we came upon the grasshopper carcass I offered it to each of the children. Tito (6 yo cousin) declined. Khubz held it and pet it and asked if it was "real" and had been alive. She speculated as to its death. Thumper took it in his palm and closed his hand around it, smiling broadly with the satisfying crunch! He was thrilled.

He is so big and still he fell asleep in grandma's arms today for nap. In the midst of chaos. Children running around, presents on the ground kind of chaos. He cuddled up, nestled in and fell asleep. He is my grand, two year old boy.

I love him. Fiercely.

106 years old

I was listening to iowa public radio and they interviewed this woman who was 106 years old. Her favorite time to remember was in the 1930s. Also known as the great depression. And why? Because "life seemed simpler. My children were young and I didn't have the kind of worries that I have now."

Ok. Point taken.

In honor of embracing the simplicity of small children. Let me present Khubz's gingerbread girl.

You've Earned It

By the way, anyone still reading this after 2 posts in 2 years has earned a pic.

PeekaPeekaPeeka

Boo!

Hello again,

Thumper is walking. He says Mama and [B] "anana", signs for leche (which I just stopped personally supplying yesterday), answers with a hug for "abrazo" and a kiss for "beso." His favorite books are Sandra Boynton and any book that gets in a "Moo" or a "Quack" sound.

Khubz is all about reading books and being contrary. She wants to do everything herself from putting the toothpaste on her toothbrush, to getting her own water, to doing the dishes, to battering eggplant for her own eggplant parmasean.

Scully is busy as hell with work and mommy-ing and dissertation-ing.

And yet the mommies are going to get their very first recreational kid-free overnight since Khubz was born. I cannot wait.

We are good. We really are.

much, much better

A number of things helped today.

Preschool.

A long afternoon nap for everyone (especially mommy!)

and especially,

Tia Teefa taking Khubz ice skating!!! There will be skating pictures uploaded at some point but everyone can just picture Khubz and her Tia as Khubz periodically calls out, "Mommy, I'm doing GREAT!" It was awesome! Totally & completely awesome!!!

And it was right after preschool. So in the car after ice skating I fed her a PB sandwich and she crashed out in the car. I carried her in to the house and put her in bed. 15 minutes later Thumper was also asleep and I got him in his crib.

5 minutes later Khubz woke up.

So I ask if she wants me to sing to her and I get in bed with her and I WAKE UP 2 1/2 HOURS LATER. BOTH OF MY CHILDREN ARE STILL ASLEEP.

It is as if God was, in fact, rewarding me for making it through yesterday.

But it was now 4 pm and I was in danger of sabatoging bedtime. So I woke up both of my children--this sort of goes against the grain but it was the right thing to do. And we had a really nice day. Late bedtime, but all okay.

Scully is traveling for work and won't get home till about 10 tonight but when she comes in she'll find a well-rested, not crazy Mommy in a messy but happily-played-in home. Want proof?

Got that lovin feeling

Thumper is feeding himself now, fist after hungry fist. Tonight? Black beans and roasted sweet potato. And applesauce. And bread. And rice. He must be going through a growth spurt because he is never done with his meal.

He gets totally excited about Khubz. When he heard her not-napping at naptime he got all excited and scrambled down to her room. They then begin to "talk" to each other through the door. And, once again, I am the only one in the house who is begging for a nap.

Later I'm giving Thumper a bath and Khubz comes in to pee! (never to pee. always to pee!!!) I'm with my baby in the tub so help yourself. My back is to Khubz and I hear her say, "Wait! Waiiit! Wait for me! I'm coming in--don't flush!" She is doing a voice over for her toilet paper. She throws the toilet paper in and then flushes saying, "whew! I made it!"

There are all of these ways that she surprises me.

Later in the night we went to the store and were putting the food away. Scully remarks, "oh, I should have gotten some fruit to take to work tomorrow." She was saying this to me. Khubz looks up from her blueberries and says, "I have an idea, Mama! Take some of mine. I will share." We didn't even think she was listening to us.

Earlier at the store she wanted to hold her blueberries. We'd even given her a choice of a clearance halloween costume (with an orange wig) or the blueberries and she wanted the blueberries. (she did come from my body, you know.) So she hands the blueberries to the woman at the checkout and then asks for them back--she wants to hold them. Of course, you all already know the punchline. We turn around and Khubz drops the blueberries. Blueberries roll everywhere at the checkout. Everywhere. Okay. What do we do when we make a mess? "Clean it up!" she says. Okay. Now picture me and Khubz chasing blueberries all over the floor at the MallWart checkout registers. And I mean chasing. People were walking by and (accidentally?) kicking them. I handed her a brush--this was a mistake. Blueberries do roll naturally and with a 3 year old batting them around. . . You get the picture. So we got them all up (impressing the cashier who I guess thought we were just going to leave them there?) and thrown away. She still had some in the container that were saved--thank god. It was actually pretty funny.

We all had a really nice day today.

dia de los muertos

Well, I am posting this too late to get in on the goods over at Crafty Chica. But every good altar deserves a post (even if only a picture post.)

October runs in the family

Code

"I want to be a clown!"

This means "I want to take my markers and color all over my body."

(I should say that we are all sick and stuck in the house together--all of us. all weekend. Since Friday, even. and so my answer is most likely to be. . .)

"Uh. . . Um. . Okay. Whatever."

"I can color my arm?"

"sure."

"I can color my face?"

"no. not your face, please."

"I can color my belly?"

"sure."

"I can color my hands?"

"sure."

"I can color my bottom?"

"No."

"My feet?"

"Absolutely."

So we add "i want to be a clown" to "i want to be a puppy." which means she wants to wear shoes on her feet and shoes on her hands and walk around like a puppy. She usually wants to be a puppy as we are trying to leave the house. Sure, it's adorable. If you don't mind adding 30 minutes on your trip from the front door to the car door. But, yes. Adorable.

And the little man? Thumper has 4 teeth. Count 'em. 4. And he is using them. Just today we have developed this routine where he bites me, I pull him off my breast and glower at him. I plop him on the ground and frown. He begins to cry. I'm the one that was bit and he's crying? So we wait a minute and then try again. Right now he's having a bottle with Scully. Bite away.

Small Wonder

Khubz started preschool yesterday. It was pretty clear she thought she had been dropped off in Disney Land. We had had an incredible weekend, with fabulous friends & family and a fabulous birthday party (she is three!) And ever since then she had been a hideous, horrid goop of a child. Horrid. I decided she'd had too much of "being special" as a birthday girl.

I was a bit worried dropping her off at daycare. Would they expel her? And what was the report? From Khubz: "Good." That's all. Like a teenager. Just "good." From the preschool teachers? "She is so sweet!" And I scrunched my eyes together trying to check them for sarcasm. No, really. Completely sweet.

In truth, she is doing great at preschool. I get dribbles of information like, "they've got hats! Fireman hat and a police officer hat and a princess hat." They talked about their families at circle time today. "How did it go?" No answer. "Did you tell them Lalo's name?" (we sent pictures.) No answer. "Did anyone say 'you can't have two mommies?' or 'haven't you read the bible?' or 'SODOMITE!' or anything like that??" Still no answer.

I'm sure if someone did she could take it. She practices all her wrestling moves on Thumper--she'd get them down.

Anyway, she seems to be having a great time. So I'm posting a couple pics from her fantastic birthday party. But don't tell her. I can't have the birthday monster back for a whole nother year.

Happy Birthday, sweet girl.

when crawling is not enough

Its been a while friends.

Thumper is crawling. At his 6 mo checkup the doctor asked, "is he sitting up on his own yet?" No. We sit him up and he slumps over. And the next day he started sitting up. And getting in to a sitting position on his own. And then scooting to reach things. And then crawling.

He is more than crawling. He gets in a crawl position but puts his feet flat on the floor so he pushes up and shoots! forward!

It means when he crashes it sucks quite a bit. Last night I was worried he'd broken his nose by propelling himself flat into the floor on his face. Ouch.

But most of the time he chases his sister around. She loves this. He loves to head to the bathroom because it always results in a scoop up and return game.

He is just usually totally, totally joyous. And on the move. Unbelievably.

One more

I can't resist.

Not at the wedding, obviously. But a great pic of the girl from Tia Lila.

Whew!

Back from a family wedding in Colorado. Lots to catch up. As usually, I'm just posting some pics.

I suck. I know. But the pics are really good.

First Post by Khubz

"Thumper and Mommy"

"Khubz and Mommy. In the Jungle."

(or at a zoo.)

"Muddy Khubz. Khubz Muddy. With Muddy Hands"

(at the ranch. in the mud. in heaven.)

"Mommy and Mama and Khubz and Thumper. In the zoo. With Flamingos. Finding Nemo."

(at the Dallas Aquarium and we did, in fact, find Nemo.)

Dinosaur crunching Khubz. That's funny. That was funny."

"

Flashback

What a difference a year makes!

Found it!