Toothbrush != Hairbrush

The last time we went to the pediatrician, he told us that we should be introducing DJ to the toothbrush. Needless to say, we forgot until sometime last week.

I pulled out a small toothbrush for him and showed him that it goes in one's mouth. I gave it to him, and he tried to brush his hair. I grinned, and tried to move his hand towards his mouth, but he turned his head away and tried to brush his hair again. So then I showed him that he can chew on it, but he'd have none of it. I tried to get him to put the bristles only on his front teeth, but that must've tickled because he turned his head away upon contact.

He knows to comb his hair with a comb, but the brush? He'd never seen that before and yet knew that a brush can be used to brush one's hair. Smart little boy!

Elektra has found her thumb!

Over the last few days, Elektra has been stuffing her hand in her mouth fairly often. I think she's been looking for her thumb and I think she found it today! She still takes the pacifier fine, but she's also looking for (and finding) her thumb more regularly. DJ is a pacifier boy when we were convinced he'd be a thumb sucker. Will we have a thumb or pacifier baby in Elektra? Time will tell!

Elektra's first snow

Yesterday, the first snow of winter fell, and Elektra got to watch it fall from the sky. She looked out the window from the kitchen for a few moments. Of course she has no concept of what she was seeing but hey... it's her first snow nonetheless!!!

DJ's Words

DJ is definitely starting to vocalize more. Sometimes he says the same words consistently, and other times it seems like he tries to say the word and then doesn't say it again for a long time. We (Steve, Eleanor, Sonny and I) have heard him say a whole slew of words. The ones he says consistently are:

Daddy, Baby (for Elektra), fish, shoes, ding (as in, the toaster's done), moo, Yiayia (comes out as Ayia or Yiayia... depends), grrrr (his favorite stuffed tiger says grrrr), uh-oh, and cracker.

Other words in his vocabulary that he's said but doesn't repeat often or on demand: Mama, Papou, Eleanor, Sonny, sun, hi, woof, vroom (as in, a car goes vroom), beep (as in, the alarm system on a car goes beep).

Also, we've heard him string a couple of words together. They aren't perfectly clear, but we think we've heard: "Daddy look!", "Daddy do.", and "Here you go."

He also communicates with signs. Pointing, of course, being his primary sign of what he wants, but he'll make a sign for "more", "wash hands" and to play the drums (his current favorite activity with Daddy).

Our little boy is communicating, for sure!

First night without baby

Last night, we decided to put Elektra in her crib in her own room to sleep. We moved the baby monitor out of DJ's room into Elektra's room as well as all the blankets she has. We put her to sleep in there at 9:30pm, and I heard her via the monitor about 2:30am. I got up to feed her, and put her back to sleep in her crib at 3am. Usually she's awake for a little while after she eats, and she makes noise which keeps me awake. With her not in our room, I got to go back to sleep fairly quickly and didn't wake up again until Steve's alarm went off about 3 hours later.

This is a milestone for us... no more baby in our room. I'll pack the Pack-n-Play today so that we can reclaim the space in our room. We booted DJ out of our room at 8 and a half weeks, and apparently, without really thinking about it, we did the same with Elektra. Now we just need Elektra to sleep through the midnight to 6am hours instead of the 9pm - 3am hours!

7 Hours!!!!

WOW!!!

7 hours!!!

In a row!!!

I had forgotten what 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep feels like. The last time I got to sleep like that was sometime in August, I believe. And that was on a good night since I was in my last trimester.

So Little E was fussing by 6:30pm last night, but she had just eaten at 5pm! I put her in the snugli and she calmed down long enough to warm her a bottle and get DJ to bed (Steve did that since DJ hadnt seen much of Daddy all day.

By 7:30pm, I was feeding Little E. By 8:30pm, she'd eaten 7.5 ounces!!! Woah! She usually only eats 3-4 ounces! She had fallen asleep on the bottle, so I put her down in the bassinet.

At this point I thought I'd try an experiment. Usually we wake her up around 11pm to top her off, but I decided to see how long she would sleep instead. I was in bed by 8:45pm and the next time I heard her (she sleeps in our room and I am a super light sleeper) was 4am. Rock on Wayne! Rock on Garth!

Don't get me wrong, I wanted to keep sleeping. But I didn't feel nearly as horrible as I usually do waking up after only 2 or 3 hours. In fact, I actually felt half decent. Of course, I went back to bed after I fed her, and when DJ got up less than 2 hours later, I wasn't feeling so hot.

Makes me wonder, does the number of ounces she eats equate to the number of hours between feedings? Remember, time starts when you start a feeding, not when it ends. So 7:30pm to 4am = 7.5 hours. Maybe there is something to that. I'll have to observe more...

Anyway, I'm not certainly looking a gift horse in the mouth. We're on our way to normalcy... soon.

Sentences for DJ?

We think DJ is starting to string words together!

Both Sonny and Eleanor have heard DJ say what we think is "Daddy look!" Steve and I heard this, too, on Sunday, when DJ came into the bathroom to investigate the noise... my filling his duckie tub for his bath.

We also think he's saying "Daddy do!" when DJ wants Steve to do something. For example, tonight, DJ handed Steve a book and said, "Daddy do!" Steve took that as "Read the book to me, Daddy!"

Way to go DJ!

Elektra's 40 Day Blessing

Yesterday we took the kids (wow, it still sounds weird to say "kids") to church. We caught up with my parents and my sister and her family drove down from Lacaster.

Elektra was dressed in pink so everyone in the congregation could make no mistake that she is a little girl. ;-) DJ was in khaki's and a sailor sweater; he looked quite the toddler.

Steve took DJ to the nursery so that DJ could play for a little bit. Then my father took DJ up for communion. At first, DJ turned his head away from the spoon, but took the communion spoon when he turned his head back. Good boy! Then he stayed with us, with Cheerios being a key factor in keeping him sitting still...

Elektra, meanwhile, slept through the whole thing. She even slept through her blessing. At least she didn't spit up on Father Dean. Poor DJ, he's so doomed to do pennance as an altar boy for that... lol Interesting note, DJ was walked around the altar for his 40 day, but Elektra was not. ::sigh:: someone in the higher ups must have said something to Father Dean about no women in the altar area. Oh well.

So nothing too notable but she's now been blessed!

She's officially part of the familiy

On Tuesday, I had a dinner party to attend and rather than leaving Steve with both kids, I took Elektra to my parents' house so they could get some grandparent time in. During the last few weeks, Elektra has been very needy during the 6-9pm hours, eating almost 9 ounces during that time in small snack-like meals, and she really wants to be held. I didn't want to subject Steve to having to handle both a demanding toddler and the one time during the day when the baby is demanding, too. Besides, my parents were thrilled to watch her.

So when Steve got home with DJ, I had long since left so the house was empty (except for the dogs, of course). DJ came in, and said, "baby", but obviously didn't see Elektra. Then he actually searched the house for about 10 minutes, saying "baby" repeatedly. He was disappointed when he didn't find her!

When Elektra is in the infant car seat, he comes over to her, smiles at her, pats her gently, says "baby", and also lays his head gently against her. It's really sweet!

So it's official: DJ has accepted her as permanent, and actually misses her when he doesn't see her!