Five Months

So the past 2 months have gone much faster than John's first 3 months. I think it has to do with sleep and him not screaming. Now he just growls when provoked. What does it take to provoke a 5 month old? Attempt to feed him when he doesn't want to be fed. That is how I know when to stop feeding him oatmeal - he growls at me. I was having a hard time with John's sleep schedule, or I should say the lack of sleep he was getting at night. Then I stuffed the poor kid full and he suddenly started sleeping at night. He went from doing 5 hours to 7-9 hours at night. I am in love with baby oatmeal. Emma didn't sleep any different at night when we started her on solids. John must have been one hungry muchacho. But now he is a stuffed goose.

I think he weighs about 19 pounds. At his 4 month check up he was 17.5 pounds and 26 inches. He is sitting up some what but still not interested in rolling over. He can do it, but doesn't do it consistently. Mostly he wants to lay on his back and play with his toes. His ultimate joy comes from people. He loves to watch Emma jump off the mailbox. (The mailbox is a gymnastics mat in the shape of a traditional mailbox.) He also loves to watch her dance and jump on the trampoline. Pretty much he is one social kid. Toys-shemois, he wants to see faces up close and personal.

Emma has been doing better with her language. She is asking questions that indicate that she is processing information. She is fascinated with traffic lights. If I stop at a red arrow for a left turn and the other lanes have a green light she wants to know why I have stopped and she will explain that we can go because it is a green light. She still loves dancing and jumping on the trampoline and swimming. She also loves to help with John - buttoning up his onsies, getting his medication out of the fridge, and picking out his clothes. I can tell that will probably be a life long job for her to serve as fashion consultant for him.

Laundry

I am folding laundry in front of John right now and apparently he thinks it is hilarious. I have never heard him laugh so hard. Towels are funnier than burp cloths. I think so too.

Father's Day

Here is what we did for Aaron for Father's Day. I asked Emma some questions about Aaron and framed the questions and answers with this picture.

All About My Daddy

By Emma 2012

What is daddy’s name?

Daddy

What color is Daddy’s hair?

Brown

What color are Daddy’s eyes?

Green

What does Daddy like to eat?

Dinner

What does Daddy like to do for fun?

Play games

How long have you known Daddy?

Daddy says I’m going to tickle you

How old is Daddy?

Two old and a half

Where did you and Daddy meet?

I meet Daddy a cell phone

What does Daddy do for work?

He does lunch when he goes to work

How tall is Daddy?

His hands will get tall

How much does Daddy weigh?

Daddy’s stroller cuts the trampoline with the mailbox

What do you like to do with Daddy?

He just goes outside

What makes Daddy the best?

I hug my Daddy

Listening

So it turns out that two year olds listen when you don't want them to and don't listen when you do want them to. Perhaps a new parenting technique would be to include some embarrassing phrases in all requests for the two year old.

Emma told me that if I needed to go potty, to tell Abraham. I am assuming that she pulled Abraham from the Old Testament stories that we read but we are now on Moses so Abraham was a while ago.

While eating lunch I let John suck on my arm because I was too lazy to go get his pacifier. Half way through lunch I noticed that John had given me a hickey. I told Aaron about it and Emma over heard the conversation. Since then Emma periodically asks me if John gave me a hickey. She asks Aaron if John gave him a hickey. I am waiting for the day when Emma asks me this question in the grocery store or church or some other place that has no context of the question.

Toes and Teeth

Look what someone found:

And to go with those toes, he has his two bottom teeth coming in, hence the drool.

On another note, Emma wears this skirt just about every day with various shirts that don't even remotely match.

Emma-isms

On Friday Emma and I were at a strip mall that had bells playing. The bells were electronic and were staticky, and cutting in and out. High quality I tell you what. It was a far cry from the bell tower at BYU. Emma would comment on how the bells would stop and start. So that is the background for this next part of the story. That night there was a thunder storm. When the thunder had stopped Emma asked, "Did they turn off the thunder?"

Emma was washing her hands and noticed that the bubbles weren't going down the drain like the water did after she had turned off the water. She asked if the bubbles were resting. Then she asked if the bubbles want to watch her (as an offer of explanation as to why the bubbles weren't going down the drain). It is good to be two years old and have the world love you - including bubbles in the sink.

4 Months

Our life seems like it has been a little nuts lately, but then I talk to other people and they truly have nutty lives. So I think that I have a low tolerance for nuts.

1. Our washer died. I had a love hate relationship with our washer. It came with the house and there was no stain that it could get out. On the other hand, it somewhat worked and I wasn't in love with any washer on the market - particularly washers that are worth more than our Civic and don't actually wash but do develop a moldy smell. I chickened out on purchasing a new washer because I had zero confidence in its ability to wash so I elected to get a used washer from someone online. This decision process took 1.5 weeks. In infant laundry time that is multiple eternities. John spits up on me multiple times a day so we were both out of cloths by about day 2. I spent one day in a laundromat and was sure I did not want to duplicate that experience again. Aaron looked at our washer to see if he could fix it and he found that a duck had molted in our washer. I was totally grossed out that this had been in our house for 4 years.

 2. John turned 4 months. We started him on solids and here are the milestone pictures:

This picture pretty well sums up his opinion - not quite sure I like this change. It appears that John isn't into change. He is 50% Anderson and from a variety of personality traits, he might be more Anderson than Russell.

3. Swimming. It is flaming hot here and we have taken Emma to the pool and she is in love. She asks every day all day long to go to the pool. She is so hard up to go swimming she is willing to go poops in the potty if she can wear her bathing suite in the bath tub. She isn't sold on the whole poops in the potty thing so that just shows how much she loves swimming. She puts her face in the water all by herself and jumps in to the deep end all by herself. One upside is that swimming appear to make her tired:

This is John waking up from his nap.

4. Dress up. Today Emma spotted princess dresses in the closet. They are hand me downs. She has had zero, maybe even negative interest in dress ups prior to now. She spotted them today and was in love. She didn't want to take off her Cinderella dress at all.

We dressed John up in these. I have to return them because his noggin is too big. It is those Scandinavian genes - they have big heads and he gets it on both sides of the family.