October 24-30, 2010

On Sunday, Will worked with his tools.



Evie looked on with concern.



On Monday, something probably happened, but you'll never know what because this is the only photo we took.



On Tuesday, Evie saw something to her left.



It was George in a box.



Hooray George!



On Wednesday, Evie had Conan hair.



On Thursday, I thought about taking the kids to story time at the library, but decided what the hell, it's my last week of maternity leave, let's go crazy. So we went to Sea World. Sea World + one toddler + one baby in a carrier + one purse stuffed with diapers and snacks and bottles = inability to carry large, unwieldy camera or take many pictures with mobile phone camera. Here are a couple though.



Will grew a knee out of his chest! (Or he and the guy next to him secretly coordinated shirts/shorts.)



Evie spent the whole time in the carrier, mostly asleep, with one of Will's hats over her head. I picked the one day it was 85 to go to a park with very little shade, wear the baby, causing me to sweat all over the place. I realized about ten minutes after we got there that I didn't put on deodorant that morning. I also forgot to bring a hat for Evie and sunscreen for Will. Aside from the dolphin show (which Will hated), we spent most of the time at indoor exhibits and found shade at the dog and cat show (which Will loved).

Also: Will tried on his dinosaur hoodie, which I had finally started working on for Halloween. It still needed a tail, but he liked it so far.



On Friday, because it was my last Friday of maternity leave, we decided to spend the afternoon at the zoo.


Pandas!


Snack time after a long walk.


Eagles used to be this big. Are you sufficiently freaked out by this?


Will bent down and said, "Oh hi turtle. My name is Will."


Will liked the tiger chair, though his feet didn't reach the massager.

Evie slept most of the time, so here's a picture of her we took later in the day.



Then Will and Lorne read the ladybug counting book.



On Saturday, Will watched the World Series. He enjoyed the announcement of the lineups.



Then we carved pumpkins.

Will told us what shapes to draw on most of the pumpkins.





We made Evie help us take the guts out. She's got to start earning her keep around here.





Later, Will became a ghost.

October 17-23, 2010

On Sunday, Grandpa Bill went home and Evie was blurry.



On Monday, Will got his hair cut.



His ability to smile was in his hair. Oops.



Meanwhile, Evie leaped tall buildings in a single bound.



What, you mean you can't do that?

On Tuesday, it seems we went somewhere. I think it was the grocery store, but it could have also been on a treasure hunt with some pirates.





On Wednesday, Evie and I played the "stick your tongue out at Mom" game. Then I tried to take a video of it and she stopped.



We also went on a super long walk.



And took a super long video.



On Thursday, we played with trains.



And put things on our fingers.



Evie avoided smiling for the camera yet again.



On Friday, Will's nap time was kind of a mess. We were going out to dinner with some friends, and I needed to get myself and Evie ready, so he eventually just didn't take one. We feared that this would make dinner with our friends a whiny, miserable mess, but he fell asleep in the car on the way there and we were early so we just drove around for awhile to let him rest more. Anyway, no pictures from the restaurant after that whole story, but here's Evie when we got home.



We tricked her into smiling for the camera by putting Lorne between her and the camera, but I just had my cell phone camera so I was having trouble capturing the smiles. She's been doing these big open-mouthed smiles recently; this is the tail end of one of those.





On Saturday, this is the only picture we took.



Sorry for the crappy quality of pictures this week, we were having issues with our camera, but they have been resolved so next week's pictures should be better.

who needs sleep?

I'll have pictures from last week up tomorrow (or thereabouts). In the meantime, here is an amusing story.

I mentioned here that we'd been having some sleep issues with Will once he sent his pacifiers off with the Paci Fairy. The problems have continued - some days he's fine, some days it takes him hours (of screaming, crying, climbing on things in his room, attempting to break his toys, etc) to fall asleep at night or before nap time. Tonight, after fighting with me and Lorne for a couple hours, I went in to tuck him in (sometimes that calms him down enough for him to sleep; sometimes it does not).

He told me he didn't want to go to sleep, so we ended up talking for a little bit. I think I've had a similar conversation with him before, but to be honest, I'm not sure. I figured it couldn't hurt.

"I don't want to go to sleep Mommy."

"I know Buddy, but you need to. You know, sometimes when I can't sleep I like to think about nice things. Thinking about things that make me happy help calm me down and then eventually my eyes just close and I fall asleep."

"I don't want to close my eyes." His brain may have been convinced he didn't want to close his eyes, but his droopy eyes were telling me something different.

"Well, how about you just try laying under your covers and thinking about something nice. You could think about going to the zoo, or Mickey Mouse, or building words with the animals on Word World, or going to Grandma Jo's house, or playing with trains, or Thomas..." I trailed off, but he didn't look convinced, so I picked up again. "Or you could think about taking a walk, or playing at the playground, or making special treats with Mommy, or reading stories with Daddy..."

He thought for a bit. "Mommy, I can't remember all of those." I love the way his mind works. I told him he didn't have to think of everything I mentioned, just one nice thing. "Can I think about baseball?"

I told him that baseball was a great thing to think about, then gave him a kiss and left his room. We haven't heard a peep out of him since. Let's hope we've turned a corner with sleep issues.

October 10-16, 2010

Sorry for the late post this week!

On Sunday, we danced the dance of joy. (No, actually, we didn't. We've been putting off paci weaning for awhile, but then Will started chewing through the pacifier tips. Like, chewing big holes in them. We were afraid he'd bite through them in his sleep and choke. So on Sunday, Will sent his pacifiers to go live with the Paci Fairy and the Paci Fairy left him a little Woody (from Toy Story) in exchange. When Will realized that the Paci Fairy wasn't going to let him borrow his pacifiers at bedtime, he pretty much lost it. Sunday was his first night without a pacifier and everyone was miserable. The end.)

On Monday, Evie berated us for our lack of pictures on Sunday.



Then she laughed at us.



Monday, our first naptime without pacifiers, was a rough day. We took no other pictures because frankly, you don't want to see what Will looked like on Monday. (You don't want to see what Will's parents looked like on Monday either.)

On Tuesday, we spent a lot of time resenting the toy Woody. Will offered to give him back to the Paci Fairy if he could get his pacifiers back. That mean old Paci Fairy doesn't do takesies backsies though. What a jerk.

On Wednesday, Evie practiced eating her fist.



No one told us that stealing Will's pacifiers would make him blurry.



Grandma Gail arrived late on Wednesday night. Hooray! This is her first time seeing the new, larger-sized version of Evie.



On Thursday, Will spent some time with his grandma. And a box.



On Friday, Will went to gym class with Grandma Gail and Grandpa Bill (who arrived late Thursday night). We took no pictures on Friday, so here are some pictures we stole from Grandpa Bill.





Evie was all, "Gym class? I don't need your stupid gym class. Whatever. I'll just hang out here by myself in my awesome swing."



On Saturday, we went up to the Bates Nut Farm in Valley Center to get some pumpkins. We thought it would be a quaint little pumpkin patch out in the middle of nowhere. When we rounded the bend on the windy little road the farm is on, BAM. At least 1,000 cars in their parking lot. Yeah. That's okay though, it was an actual pumpkin patch with things growing on vines, unlike most of the other pumpkin patches around San Diego.

Will liked the giant pumpkins.



"So, can we get this one?"



"Or maybe this one?"



He settled for normal-sized ones.



Evie thought the whole thing was pretty boring.



Note: it's really hard to get a 2-year-old to look at a camera when you want him to.



This is kind of how I felt about the petting zoo too.



After the crazy pumpkin patch we headed up to Grandma Jo's, where we chatted and watched the Huskies beat OSU in double overtime WOOO. Also, Will worked on the animal train puzzle with Grandma Gail.