A three year old and an eight month old!

It has been a minute since my last post.  These kids are keeping us on our toes!  In fact, one of them sprained my toe last week!  And it was not the one you would expect.  I want to capture all of these moments, but it is also so vital to be present for the moments, and it can be challenging to do both.  I have tried to choose being there, planning inconvenient outings and messy projects, over cataloging every minute.  I know I am missing a lot, but we are shaping real people, and the most important thing to me is that we give them an unshakably solid sense that they are known, they are loved, they come from a family that will always show up for them.  But anyways, the updates...

Ellie...

Ellie turned three two weeks ago, but she has seemed three for a while.  She speaks in complex paragraphs, is in the 99th percentile for height, and usually looks like she is concentrating.  We celebrated with a birthday party at the Cherrydale Volunteer Fire Department, with chocolate ice cream cake and sprinkles and more than fifty people.  It was chaotic and there was a firefighter demonstration and freeze dance and a stop, drop and roll beanbag game that did not go at all as planned.  She was pretty chill about the whole thing and she milled around easily with friends throughout the party.  

She continues to maintain her passion for leaf collecting and she has really grown into being a great helper around the house.  She loves art projects, at home or at school and she has recently begun following in my footsteps with her hypothetical questions: Grandma, would you still love me if...

Her teachers report that she is "the sweetest one" in her class and loves to play with her friends at school.  They also mentioned her sensitivity -- she hates to see anyone upset, and will jump in to try to comfort a friend who is crying out someone who is not feeling well.  One teacher said, she is so soft, it is not in her nature to hurt anyone.  Her teachers have also noticed her love of art, music, books and baby dolls.  She is also an unusually attentive listener for a child her age and loves to participate in circle tint at school.

At home, she is often uproarious and excited, but we have never seen her angry.  She loves to be with us and has a hard time being alone in her room before bedtime, so Zoe has been spending the night with her.  She loves to dance around to music, talk to herself or Baa in the bathtub, and eat all kinds of food,but especially Daddy's special cheese with noodles, mushrooms and tomatoes.  She is so discerning!  And so observant.

I could write forever about this dear, increasingly complex child.  I adore her.  It is such a joy to spend time with her, singing, reading, chatting in the car, cuddling in bed, making a gingerbread house.  I tell her when I pick her up that I missed her all day, and it is true!  We all sing this Daniel tiger song -- I like you, I like you, I like you just the way you are.  It is absolutely true.  We could not be luckier to have such a sweet, kind hearted, smart and funny girl in our midst..

Other memorable quotes, from the mischievous side of Ellie...

B: Why did you kick me in the head?

E: Because my body said let's kick mommy in the head.

B: Are you going to do it again?

E: Yes. No.

Favorite mispronounced words: chocowit, eh-wee, other words with the letter L

Myles...

Still waters run deep.  This eight month old guy is growing so quickly!  He weighs nineteen pounds and is wearing twelve month clothes.  He is sitting, crawling and pulling himself up to a stand.  He is eating baby oatmeal, mashed banana and avocados, and every tiny scrap of paper he can get his hands on! 

Myles likes to move!  He is a very avid crawler and he recently discovered his jumparoo. He is so excited about jumping that Nitin's mom said she worried that he jumps excessively!  His quick feet and hands are also adept at kicking over bowls of food and splashing in the bathtub.  

The most salient thing about Myles is still his incredible sweetness.  When he smiles at you, you feel like the only person in the world.  He also giggles so sweetly, especially when you mimic his cooing sounds.

I worry that we are not able to be as hyper focused on Myles's development as we were with Ellie.  He receives a lot of love, and we squeeze his chunky thighs plenty, but I wonder if he is read to as much, etc.  But he does have the advantage of a stimulating big sister, and learning to entertain himself a bit more.  

I do notice that he is sensitive to large noise and big groups of people. He is happiest in familiar environs with familiar people.  I can relate.

He loves to cuddle and is such an affectionate guy.  Such a good boy with such a sweet, kind nature.  I am totally smitten.

Before he was born, I spent an en evening in the Princeton ER, because I was having trouble breathing.  I texted my parents and we came up with names for each letter of the alphabet.  I knew then how much I wanted to name him Myles, but I could not have known that some of the sweet, gentle nature of his namesake was already a part of our baby boy.

Myles is six months old! Ellie is two going on sixteen years old!

So. Whoops.  It seems that several months have elapsed.  It is Wednesday night and laundry and dishes await.  So even this long delayed post whole be brief.  Thus, one lesson in parenting: better now than perfect.  So, now and imperfect, a few thoughts on these sweet cuddle monsters who have stolen my heart.  And to any adult children who may be reading these paltry and sporadic entries: I am sorry. You wanted more huggies and kissies.  You spit up on the carpet, the dog, yourself.  You stared into my eyes with your beautiful brown eyes and grabbed my arm with your tiny fingers and lookin in these moments seemed more important than preserving the for posterity.

Myles...

Myles aged six months overnight.  I want to make some joke about how often he wakes me up to hang out overnight, but I got nothing. Sleep deprivation will do that to a person.  He rarely really screams.  He registers his concerns pretty considerately, with gentle mewling, until I wake up to feed him. Is he hungry? Is he teething? I have no idea, but I honestly enjoy his company at all hours of the day.  Because he is setsw, sweet, sweet.  With such a goofy grin.  He really loves music and he is a born cuddler.  We call him a koala because he grabs onto your clothes to hang on if you try to transfer him.  He wants to be with you.  He is working so hard on crawling and what tickles me is that he is doing so many things that are more difficult than crawling, such as downward facing dog and plank.  Not a lot of interest in sitting.  I place him in sitting position and he falls like a tree, but he is never concerned about it.  He continues to drool about as much as a Mastiff puppy but again, unconcerned.  In comparison to Ellie, he seems like such a docile baby, but he is very active and he definitely has a sense of humor.  I should really take more videos of his smiles that melt me and his gleeful squealing.  He really does shreik just to let folks know he is around.  The bottom line, a joyful guy who brings so much joy to the folks around him.

Ellie

Where to begin? Ellie is so sharp and more eloquent than some adults I know.  I need to take videos and also record the things she says.  They are bananas.  She began hey new school and is doing pretty well, despite some separation anxiety that we have been working through.  She was having trouble using the potty at school until hilariously, we discovered that she was afraid of a picture of Mary and Jesus in the bathroom.  Which yes, seems like an odd design choice, even for a church classroom.  She feels more ownership over her artwork now and makes sure we take it home at the end of the day.  Her circles and faces look more like circles and faces and she loves crayons, paints and messes.  She has a raucous laugh that we hear often and a lively imagination -- she is visited by an itinerant imaginary friend named Hava and likes to make up words with unclear behind, like Eenie Baneenie.  She and Baa remain inseparable, and Baa is a main subject of her present play -- Baa is naughty, Baa needs to say he is sorry, Baa is a teacher.  I love her spirit.  She is wild and beautiful and smart and so funny.  It is also true that I often have no idea how to rein her in, or whether I should.  A counselor at school said that this is the age of autonomy and independence.  She does delight in choices -- a colorful outfit crafted by her, selecting hey own m and Ms, choosing what to make for dinner.  My wild girl is also tremendously affectionate.  She tells us she loves us, showers us in kissies, and gives us a run for our money.  Everyday, I ask Ellie, "You know what I like about you?". And then, together, we say, "everything!" Would never change a thing, sweetheart.

A family of four!

Oh dear. Myles will be eight weeks old tomorrow.  The transition to being a family of four has been a bit of baptism by fire.  The first eight weeks with Myles have been so different than the first eight weeks with Ellie.  The first eight weeks with Ellie were easier than anyone expected them to be.  The ratio was two fairly competent adults to one baby.  We did not know what we were doing, exactly, but we had had time to carefully prepare and even once she arrived, there was still a set of free hands not dealing with a child most of the time.  I actually felt like it was possible to do a decent job of parenting.  She had an outfit for each holiday.  I sang to her and we read books to her even when she was just weeks old.  There was still enough slack in our lives to bask in each milestone.  I remember her first year with such sweet nostalgia.  These recollections surfaced tonight when I played lullabies for Myles that we had listened to on repeat with Ellie.  I remember how peaceful I felt, listening to those in the car as we drove to Shenandoah, Chicago and upstate New York, with Ellie napping peacefully in the backseat.

I do not want to belabor all that is different this time around.  The pregnancy was more exhausting because we had a toddler in tow, because we were both older, because I caught the flu weeks before delivery, because we have now been living in a bizarre parallel universe in which Trump is president for two and a half years. The postpartum period was inexplicably and dramatically challenging for me.  I am incredibly grateful for every healthy day; there were many weeks of very difficult days.  And of course, in 2019, our brand new baby has a toddler big sister who is reacting to her world having turned upside down.  But I still believe that we have many moments of sweetness ahead of us, oases amid the chaos.

Ellie has grown by leaps and bounds.  She is in the 98th percentile for height and the 70th percentile for weight.  She is incredibly articulate, communicating complex ideas in complex sentences.  She is constantly singing songs we've never heard before.  She is climbing the stairs independently, counting beyond ten, and negotiating like a pro -- whenever we ask her to do anything, she says, "please set the  timer for two minutes!". There are letters she cannot say and pronouns she mixes up, so she says things like, "I want you to sit on my yap." She also cannot pronounce R, so green is just "geen." She has a raucous sense of humor and a full body laugh -- she finds certain things, like Mitch McConnell, inexplicably hilarious.  She is in the midst of potty training -- we really have deferred to her mostly, letting her go at her own pace and rewarding her with m&ms -- blue ones, obviously.  And she is now sleeping in her big girl bed.  So many transitions.  We went through a difficult time with bedtime -- she simply would scream and cry not to be left alone, for hours!  A sticker chart, with the promise of French fries, seems to be improving the bedtime mania, so far.  She is spirited, funny, and full of life -- a hearty kid who will eat all kinds of food, loves to dance and play with magna tiles, and is increasingly social with new people.  But she has a sensitive side, too, needing more reassurance, especially recently.  We are smitten with our lovable girl and she keeps us on our toes...

I hate to fall into the cliché of writing less about our second baby!  I'll write first about Myles in my entry.  My little guy, who I call Mylesy, is a sweet and gentle little soul.  He loves to hear music.  He is more sensitive to sound than Ellie was -- startles more easily and may even start crying when Zoe barks, which Ellie never seemed to notice.  He has such a serene little face when he is calm, though.  His features are more diminutive than Ellie's, I think.  He is also much smaller -- in the tenth percentile so far, where Ellie was always in the 90th plus.  Part of this is no doubt owed to his issues with reflux, which have been new to us.  Despite his small size, he has been a pretty good nighttime sleeper. Like many babies, he enjoys being strolled outside.  He is not overly fond of baths, but is nonetheless a good sport.  For the early morning feeding, I exclusively breastfeed him, and we often snuggle in bed afterwards until we finally rise to meet the day.  When I met Myles, all of my worries about how I could love anyone as much as I love E disappeared.  I love them both beyond measure.  There is no conflict at all between the boundless love for one and the boundless love for the other.  I just hope that they'll adore each other.  And that they'll adore reading and dogs, and be compassionate humans, and that they'll be happy and healthy, of course.  And for our part, I hope that we'll be happy and healthy, too -- wise enough to not sweat the small stuff, to trust and enjoy the journey, to take the time to care for ourselves and each other.  Sometimes it can feel like wheels are about to come off, but we are doing this thing.  I do not want to wake up and thirty years and realize that I missed the majesty of it while I was clenching my teeth and gripping too tightly.

Almost a family of four!

Five weeks from today -- or sooner -- we'll be a family of four! We have quite a few boxes left to check and it is hard to imagine how different life may be with a new baby in the mix.  We are so excited to meet him and the last stretch is moving quickly.  Before Ellie arrived, there was so much precise planning -- this time, we are wrangling a toddler, and preparations for the new baby feel more haphazard.

I wanted to capture how much Ellie has blossomed before we enter this new stage.  A few anecdotes:

• Ellie has become so adept at using her imaginatiom.  After a recent walk, she "fed" her beloved Baa "chocolate and vanilla cupcakes" -- actually leaves she had collected from our yard (one of her favorite pastimes).  She also loves to use her toy phone to call her friend Annika and to receive calls from Thomas the Train.
• She really loves to spend time outside, and these days, every walk is a "nature walk." She pays close attention her surroundings and likes identifying shapes like circles (metal sewer covees) and rectangles (various signs) around her.
• She says semi-adult things that surprise us these days!  After a trip to the grocery store, Ellie turned to Nitin and said, "Thank you for buying food, Dad." This morning, I told Ellie to have a wonderful day, and she replied, "Have a good day at work today, mama." I have no idea what she thinks work is, but she knows that is what we do all day!
• She also loves to make jokes. We told Zoe to stop barking one night, and then Ellie started shouting, and we told her to stop barking.  Our little smart aleck said, "I'm not barking, you're barking! Stop barking mama!"
• Ellie has started napping in her big girl bed -- and she'd love to sleep there at night -- but we are not quite ready for a kid who will not stay in bed!
• She is also almost add geographically aware as I am!  She knows where Annika lives, where the alley is, and when we are driving near the doctor or Nani's house.  
• She has a very solid appetite.  Some of her favorites are raisins, peppers, kalamata olives (she asks for them by name) and  "mac-a-moly." If we tell her we are going to grocery shop, she is happy to add to the list!
• In general, she is enthusiastic and joyful, with the normal highs and lows of toddler emotions.  If you ask how she is feeling, she'll usually report, "I'm feeling good," or, "I'm feeling happy."
• She loves to dance, and her favorite dance move is twirling.  Her favorite dance music is the Pete the Cat soundtrack -- especially the blueberry cupcake blues,
• She is really a trooper, and she bounces back quickly from injuries.  She fell and scraped her hand in Del Ray recently -- after crying for a bit, she popped back up and kept walking.
• She has recently started singing a little jingle, "it's OK to miss your name." I assume that she learned it in all.  It was sweet and sad to hear her sing it.  I miss her, too, and wish I could work less and spend more time with her.
• She often asks us fit huggies and kissies, and now she has starred asking me for ninbles -- pretending to eat a bite of her toes!
• She is becoming more conscious of school days, and sometimes resists.  One weekend day, when were heading out, she said, "we're not going to school, we're going on an adventure!"
• Some of Ellie's favorites: a tie between her dinosaur pants, letter pants, strawberry pants; her favorite color is blue; her favorite letter is W.  She also loves taking bubble baths with her foam letters -- she knows many of them, and she likes to quiz me, too: "What letter...this?"
• I love to hear her speak -- I should take more videos.  Even as her speech grows increasingly complex, she is missing sounds.  The letter y still replaces a lot of letter sounds.  So she'll say "yipes"  instead of wipes and "Yoyo" for Zozo, for example.
• The bedtime routine can be long, and she often is not as interested in reading as we wish she were at the end of the day, though she'll read book after him on weekend days.  We end the night by singing Twinkle, Twinkle and each give her multiple rounds of huggies and kissies.
• She sure loves music, and will sing along to lots of songs, including the Pete the Cat songs and songs from Spanish class like the colors song and the Buenos Dias songs.  She also sings the classics, like row row your boat and rain go away.
• She loves Nitin's Obama t-shirt and whenever he wears it, she shrieks, "Obama!" Nitin played get a video of Obama, too, so now she can recognize him on sight.  I don't think she has any idea who the current president is, and that makes me happy. 
• She seems to understand that her baby brother will be arriving soon.  Whole we were watching Daniel Tiger, the jingle of the episode was, "I like to spend time with my family!" Ellie was captivated and started singing along, but sang instead, "I like to spend time with my baby brother!" Heart, melted. I hope that it turns out to be true!

There is so much to write, but I have to stop somewhere!  We had a wonderful weekend with Grandma and grandpa this weekend, despite a rough start with Ellie falling ill with a stomach  virus. Grandpa is funny and silly and Grandma is, of course, the kindest and most patient person that Ellie has ever met.  We're so lucky that she has three absolutely doting grandparents to make her feel so special.  That is all for now, but I'll try to write again soon!

A two year old!

We have been on hiatus for a few months, and much has happened.  We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Joyces, Shobha, Yama, and Shantanu and family.  The next day, we had a family birthday party to celebrate Ellie's second birthday.  The theme was Sesame Street, and there were enormous helium balloons and a pin the party hat on the Sesame Street character game.  Ellie received many, many gifts, including a red wagon that she immediately took a shining to.  She was just on the cusp of enjoying the ritual of unwrapping the gifts -- at her party, she was much more interested in the noisemakers, but by Christmas, she wanted to unwrap everyone's presents!

As expected, her language skills have grown by leaps and bounds! She is speaking in sentences and frequently raises topics we did not realize were on her mind.  Her catchphrase these days is, "Oh no, What happened?" It sometimes means that something took her by surprise, but is often also her way of announcing that she has spiked a drink, ripped a page out of a book, etc.  She is full of funny phrases.  When we put her to bed, we ask her to let us know if she needs anything before we leave, and Ellie has started answering, "I need anything!"

She has a wide range of interests these days, from Thomas the Train, Pete the Cat, and our old standby, Sesame Street, to riding her balance bike, reading books, and drawing with crayons.  She LOVES crayons, but it can be very hard to take a bag of crayons or any other colorful object from her -- she will often hysterically shriek, "hold it!!! Hold it!!!" We try not to die on every mountain, and like parents of toddlers everywhere, wonder how often and when to give in, and when to impose boundaries.  It can be tricky, and enforcing rules related to being gentle--something that we are still working on--seem more important.

Ellie is showing a real affinity for music, and surprises is by singing all the words to songs we know, like Skinamarink, Twinkle Twinkle, and Rain Go Away, as well as songs, in English and Spanish, that she has learned in school! She also enjoys dancing, and we are thinking this may be the year to sign her up for a movement or sports class.  It has been fun to see her make new friends and begin to play more interactively with them -- children from school, the neighborhood, and church. 

Our spirited girl has lots of energy and abundant curiosity -- tripping or bumping her head rarely shows her down, and she loves to explore and spend time outside.  We are not sure how much she is thinking about one of her next great adventures -- becoming a big sister -- but we have been discussing it at home and at school.  Like many toddlers, she has many, and often strong, feelings -- and she may have many different reactions to her new brother!  But I have a feeling she will grow into being a wonderful, loving and protective big sister.  Ellie does delight in some mischief, but she also loves to be a helper, to give big hugs and has been a great help in cleaning up her toys recently.  We feel so lucky to hear her beautiful voice, to enjoy her wonderful goggles when the tickle monster visits, and to experience her infectious joy.  What a special gift to us she has been.