2.75 years old & 7 months old

*September 22 - Vincent turned 2 & 3/4 months old. I can't believe he is closer to 3 than 2 now. He is outgrowing his 2T clothing, due to long arms and legs, but he is still quite thin. Everyday he amazes us with the things he says. He speaks very well, although I think David and I are pretty much the only ones who really understand the bulk of what he is saying. What is even better is that he understands so much more of what we are saying. We have REAL conversations!

With all the talking, though, comes yelling. We are constantly reminding him to speak to us politely when he wants something. His favorite thing to say is, "I want (insert what he wants) RIGHT NOW!"

Vincent's relationship with David seems to grow stronger each day. He is quite attached to his Daddy. It's so sweet and cute. I must admit that there is some sadness for me that he is not as attached to me anymore. But, I think it goes in phases, and right now, he's all about David.

Potty training has taken a back seat, once again. With our recent move and preschool starting, we just don't want to put too much pressure on him. One day he'll learn for good, I'm sure.

He has recently been into his train set again. For his 2nd birthday and Christmas, he received a bunch of trains and tracks, but wasn't as into them as we thought he would be. In the last month or so, they're a hit again. I found this train engineer had at Gymboree the other day. He was thrilled about the hat, and glad to pose for pictures with it on.There is so much I can say about Vincent. He is truly such an amazing guy. But, the last thing I want to share about Vincey at this age is his request for stories. We've been making up bedtime stories for him. It all started with me telling him the story of how we ended up in our new house. Then, he overheard David talking to PopPop on the phone about their Mt. Whitney climb and has been asking to hear that story. Tonight, I told him about Snow White and the 7 Dwarves, only in my version. And, Prince Charming is Prince Vincent. He got a kick out of that.

*September 28 - Tyler turned 7 months old. At this age, he has two little bottom, middle teeth that want to come out, but are taking their sweet time. You can't see them unless you pry his mouth open and force his tongue to the side (Hey, I'm his mom, I can do that!). I can feel them & they are definitely through the gum line.

Tyler officially can sit up on his own. Occasionally, he will still topple over, but it's a pretty soft landing.

Tyler has started to work on his "commando" crawl. Vincent actually started to do it right around the exact same age. It's exciting, but also makes me nervous. Yesterday, we saw him making a bee-line to the cat food.

Speaking of food, he's been doing well with solid foods. He began to show interest in food much earlier than Vincent did. It's been fun. So far, he has had (and isn't allergic to) carrots, apples, pears, blueberries, prunes, sweet potatoes, green beans, beets, yogurt, rice crackers, chicken, kale, beet greens, garlic & onions (we added to stuff), and pork. It also seems that he is not allergic to wheat. He has had pizza crust, & soft pretzel, which he loves. Here he is noshing on one at the farmers' market.

With all this eating of food, his interest in nursing has become less and less (except in the middle of the night). It actually makes me pretty sad. We had such a hard time with nursing those first 4 months (even harder than with Vincent), & I remember thinking I would be happy to make it to just 6 months. Now, we've passed 6 months, and things are going well. I have a feeling that he will self-ween sooner than later. But, we'll see. Yesterday, I was nursing him before bedtime, and it was just so sweet to cuddle up close to him. I love kissing his little feet and hands. I also like to smell his feet, which usually smell like baby skin, but once in a while, it they do smell like, well, feet. Baby feet, at least, not man feet. Much different.

Lastly, I thought it would be cute to put Tyler in a stock pot. He didn't.

Little Chef

Vincent and I made these cookies yesterday:
http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/12/peanut-butter-cookies/
Fantastic and easy, but we haven't moved all of the dry goods from the old house over here, yet, so the only ingredients we had were eggs and butter. Well, we have sugar, but it's "Sugar In The Raw". What should've been a quick afternoon project turned out to be much longer. David had taken Tyler in the car to a class, so Vin and I were on foot. I strolled him up the hill to Safeway - kid's gettin' heavy! It was all worth the effort. The cookies were so yummy, and I got to see Vincent dressed like this:

Our "new" kitchen. Not fancy, but it's decently spacious, has a window and door to the patio, and a gas stove. I'm content.

Peanut Butter Cookies Adapted from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup peanut butter at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 tablespoon milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup peanut butter chips

1/2 cup chocolate chips

For sprinkling: 1 tablespoon sugar, regular or superfine

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the flour, the baking soda, the baking powder, and the salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and the peanut butter together until fluffy. Add the sugars and beat until smooth. Add the egg and mix well. Add the milk and the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly. Stir in the peanut butter and chocolate chips. Place sprinkling sugar — the remaining tablespoon — on a plate. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls into the sugar, then onto ungreased cookie sheets, leaving several inches between for expansion. Using a fork, lightly indent with a crisss-cross pattern (I used the back of a small offset spatula to keep it smooth on top), but do not overly flatten cookies. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Do not overbake. Cookies may appear to be underdone, but they are not.
Cool the cookies on the sheets for 1 minute, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

So Much Happenings...

September has been a busy month for us! Here's what's been happening in our lives...

With advance biotechnology, David had Tyler grafted to the back of his head and neck so that they are now as one. Big Boy! Vincent started preschool last week. He goes two days a week for 3 hours each day. He is doing really well, and his teacher says he has been low maintenance. Wow! Very different from at home.

We moved! Here's the house we're renting for a year. It's just a few blocks away, but in a different neighborhood. There are some steep hills to climb to get back to our old neighborhood.

A-ma was here to help watch the kids during the move. Thank you, A-ma. She and Tyler hung out on the grass at the new house.

Vincent mowed the grass while watching to movers unload.

Our first meal at the new house.

We're also in the process of putting our house on the market (again). We'll have more details on the listing once we go live.

Everyone is getting settled into the new place. I would say that it was hardest on Buster. The night we moved the cats in, he had several accidents (mostly on the street while carrying him to the car), and then hid downstairs next to the litter box for the next 24 hours. I don't think he ate for about 2 days, either. He's now back to his old self, and seems quite happy with the extra space. Stella has been on house arrest. She seems interested in going out, but hasn't been too fussy about it. It's actually really nice having her in the house only because her coat is so much softer and cleaner now.

In the old house, Vincent used to come out of his room after we put him to bed or in the middle of the night. Now, rather than come out of his room, he stays in there and yells really loudly for us. Monday night, he was screaming at 1:30am - histerical, actually. Poor guy. Then, he threw up all over his bed. We never really understood what happened, as he had no other symptoms.

Tyler is like a wild animal. He is also cutting a tooth. It's actually through his gums, but is not visible unless you look very closely. It's been this way for about a week now.

Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary. We have a sitter for a short time, & reservations at Crush.

Lunch & Pictures

This was the lunchtime scene in our house yesterday...in the mist of packing up for our move. Vincent is chatting about something, Tyler's noshing on a piece of pizza crust, Stella's sleeping in the middle of the train track, and Paul (the doll) is riding naked on Tyler's car while sucking on a pacifier. Doesn't getting better than this, does it? Did I mention we're packing to move? Note, the mess.


Some recent pictures -

Tyler bathing. Really loves splashing around!

Tyler kissing Vincent.

Vincent has been into this truck lately. He's had since he was 11 months old; I think his first "big" truck.

Vincent has also really been into his "Mo Mo". He got this new helmet last week at the farmers' market for $5 during Children's Hospital's helmet drive (or whatever you call it). The playfield across the street got a makeover this summer. It's now artificial turf & we've been going over there to run around or ride the scooter a lot.

Harry Potter

I just finished re-reading Harry Potter, book 7 last night. Well, I have that very last chapter (19 Years Later) to read still. Vincent has been seeing me read the book, and I've read parts of it to him here and there as well.

Tonight, David and I decided that he should meet this Harry Potter guy. So, he watched parts of the first movie. We weren't sure if he'd find it a little too scary, but he seemed to be okay with it. When the troll arrived, he did yell, "Too much! Too much!" David stood in front of the screen, only to find Vincent peering to the side of him to see what he was missing.

At bedtime, Vincent requested to see me & asked me to sing the Harry Potter song. Huh??? I made up some tune without words, and ask him if that was the song. He said, "yeah." So, I kept humming it. Suddenly, he belted out, "You don't know the Harry Potter song!"

Name That Baby

In Other Hunt News

This was the scene at Bellevue square mall this afternoon. Our lovely toddler has been fighting the afternoon nap as of late, after about 2 hours of not napping in his room we decided that was long enough and figured no nap today. So we decided to take the kids to Bellevue Sqaure mall (it's raining today) so that Vincent can run around and climb on the big boats, one of his favorites. Of course he decides to fall a sleep on our way there. Then to our amazement he doesn't wake up when we get him out of the car and he proceeds to stay asleep when I insert him in this uncomfortable mall stoller (top picture). The poor guy was all hunched over and kept doing a head bob, we finally decided to take Tyler, who is giddy at this point, out of the Phil and Teds and let Vincent lay down in there. Vincent sleeps through all of this and we are in the middle of a noisy crowded mall. This is the same Vincent who will be totally sacked out when we are out late and when we carefully transfer him to his bed he will wake up the second his head hits the pillow. I guess we need a shopping mall soundtrack for his room.

He ended up sleeping for more than an hour! He of course wakes up cranky right as we are sitting down to eat some dinner. The whole evening was too funny for a little crankiness to bring it down though. We finally did make it to the boats and Vincent loved it.

Guest Writer, Daddy

Squirrel Update 2.0 - It's A Girl!

The baby squirrel has been picked up from our house, and is being rehabilitated. Turns out, the place up north is full with squirrels, so they are no longer taking them, and will euthanize if taken there. Nope, you aren't gettin' our squirrel. Our friend will keep her until she feels she is ready to be released back on the street. She has a call in to a vet-in-training friend who will help give advice on the process. And, this isn't her first time doing this for animals, so we feel really happy that we made the call to her. A couple months ago, she saved a baby crow!

We just got news that Squirrel is doing great, and has finally started jumping around a bit.

Squirrel Update

We brought it back home...

After dinner, we went to check on the baby squirrel, and it was still there, where I left it, curled up in a little ball. We called a friend of ours who knew a bit about saving animals, and she said that if it has fleas, it's likely not with its mom. How sad! She said that if we brought it home, she would come by and pick it up tonight and take it to a place up north that will help it.

Squirrel is now curled up next to a warm water bottle that we have wrapped in faux fur (as per Friend's suggestion) on an old towel in the cat carrier, under another box for extra protection from neighborhood cats, until Friend can come fetch it. Yes, we happened to have some extra faux fur lying around.

Temporary Squirrel Mother

It was an afterthought to take a photo, so I have none to share...I was a squirrel mother for about 30 minutes today. As David and I were driving home from lunch with the kids, we saw a baby squirrel in the middle of the street. We pulled over, and as we sat there for, oh, 30 seconds, a mail truck drove right over it! It didn't run the poor thing over, thankfully, so I got out and picked it up. I didn't really know what to do, so I got back in the car with it. Yeah, smart. My two young kids in the back seats and this tiny wild animal seemed to have stuff crawling on it. But, it was so cute, and seemed so sweet. We drove around the corner to our house, put it in a basket with some carrot tops and weeds, and called the animal shelter.

Based on my quick search of squirrels, I think it was only about 2 weeks old. It didn't seem like it was injured, but when I picked it up, it didn't resist. It even seemed to like it when I gently stroked it's little back. Vincent was really excited to see it, and REALLY wanted to hold it and bring it in the house.

So, the animal shelter told me to call this other number, but said that they will likely euthanize it. She suggested that it be put at the base of a tree nearby where we found it, and hope that its parents will find it. And, that's just what I did. I hope it lives a long, happy squirrel life.