Happy 6 month birthday Chanson!!

So, in other news… Chanson is sitting up now ;-) He’s been able to sit up for long periods since Sept 10th. I need to blog more ;-) He sticks his butt in the air when he lies on his tummy… I think that might mean that he’s gearing up to crawl. We’ll see! When I put toys beyond his reach, and put my hands on his feet, he’ll springboard off my hands to reach the toys.

He’s decided he doesn’t want to be a great sleeper anymore. Not sure what happened! Ever since we went to California, he’s been up almost every single night. Ugh… It was really bad, where he would cry and scream and be up for 2 hours at a time! I’d stay there with him, but he’d still cry in my arms. He was really stuffed up, and couldn’t breath from his nose, so couldn’t take the paci. Ends up he has an ear infection (but never had a fever, which was always my sign with Aria!). Since he’s been on antibiotics, he’s slept much better. He still gets up a few times a night, usually, but it’s pretty easy to get him back down. I want the old sleeping until 7 am Chanson back!

He has started to eat solids! I read that their digestive systems develop all together. So , when his mouth is ready to eat, his belly is ready to take food. In other words, when the tongue thrust reflex is gone, they’re ready. I would say his fave so far is bananas and carrots. He’ll eat peas and apples, but not crazy about it. He does NOT like cereal. I don’t even attempt that anymore.

He started using more consonants in his speech recently. He says babababa or dadadada. Matthew left the room the other day, and Chanson looked at me and said “dada”. It was a complete coincidence, but, it was pretty funny.

He can play with toys like he’s supposed to, which I think is so cool! Of course, they are baby toys, but he hits buttons to make them beep, and spins what is meant to spin. He can pick up a ball with one hand (since end of August when he started sitting up for short periods). Then it’s as though he throws it bc he swings his arm and lets go. I know he’s not actually throwing, but we like to think he is ;-) Matt always tries to get him to do it left handed – but it’s funny bc we’ll put the ball on his left side, and he’ll pick it up with his left hand, and hand it over to his right hand. Anyway… I love watching him play! He’s been playing with toys correctly since August, though, so I might’ve already mentioned it. I need to blog more…

He’s good at independent play. He’s especially good now that he sits up so solidly. Almost every morning he wakes up and plays and babbles in his crib. He doesn’t wake up in the morning crying. I LOVE that! That is when Aria and I go up to get him, and Aria gets in his crib, too. They cuddle and play

Games Aria and Chanson play… Aria sticks Chansons whole hand in her mouth and Chanson laughs really hard. Aria also likes to feed Chanson. She does a good job, actually, and is gentle (which she isn’t a lot of other times ;-) She even scoops the extra food off of his chin onto the spoon. Otherwise, Aria is pretty rough with him (in an overly zealous loving kind of way). I keep telling her that she can be rough with him when he gets a little bigger, but for now, we have to be gentle. When I told her that the other day, she waited about 3 seconds and said “he’s older now!” I think that she and her daddy can’t wait till he gets bigger so they can play rougher with him. Aria hugs him really tight, sometimes, or tries to get him to wrestle around with her. I love that he’s tough enough to endure her roughness, but can’t wait till he’s older and they can really wrestle. Sometimes, though, she’s really sweet, and offers him toys, and plays with him gently. When she’s like that, she talks to him with a really high voice – it’s cute!

Yesterday Aria put makeup on him… uh oh!!! (she pretended to with a makeup brush.)

Hmmm what else? OH he weighs about 16 lbs (a little over that I think) and he’s in 6-9 month clothes now. He has his 6 month appt this Friday! He’s still got the sweetest personality, and he’s in that super cuddly stage. I am loving (!!!) this age!!! Besides the lack of sleep, that is…

Art unappreciation 101

So, I thought it was about time we started to learn about Art. I rented an art dvd for kids from the video store, and got out my book about the Louvre. I anticipated my daughter being spellbound with interest in learning all about the artists and seeing their works. Well, we started the dvd, and I opened the book so we could find the painting on the dvd in the book. I looked at Aria, and her eyebrows were together and eyes squinted as though she were saying “what the heck is THIS”. She said “mama, I wanna watch the Art movie” I told her “this IS the Art movie”. Now, this was a good dvd. I could watch it myself. It has great music, too. So, back to Aria… “Mama, I don’t like it” I said “take a look at the book!” she took a look, and closed it. “Mama, I don’t like it. I wanna watch Tinkerbell”. After each painting, all the animals would clap, and they’d go onto the next part. Each time this happened, Aria’s face lit up, and she said “It’s all over mama??!” Next, a part on the movie came on where cartoon characters were walking through a museum, and there was a guy who had a frown on his face. Aria said “mama, he’s sad. Why is he sad?” I said that he wasn’t sad, he was bored, and wanted to go home. Aria said “Mama, I wanna go home with him, OK?” I’m laughing at this point at my art unappreciative daughter. Then the Ballet at the Opera painting came on the screen, and I found it in the book to show Aria. She closed the book, again, and said “THE end… Mama, can we watch Tinkerbell?” I tried to convince her to just take a look at all the pictures in the book. I opened it (as she attempted to close it) and paged through, asking “do you like this one?” each time, the answer was “NO!” The look on her face the whole time was hilarious, I wish I had it on video. So much for my artistic daughter… hmmm…I guess I’ll work on Chanson ;-) She did get something from the video, however. Have you ever wondered what the guy is screaming about in the painting The Scream? Well, when Aria saw this painting, she put her hands to her cheeks, opened her mouth wide and screamed “I forgot my paints!” Who knew?

Aria is very polite. She says please and thank you almost always when she should. Today I asked her if she needed to go potty, and she said “no, thank you”. I asked if she was sure, and she said “no, thank you”.

OK, this girl can walk in heels like a pro. (Well, I guess “pro” is the wrong word when we’re talking about high heels, but you know what I mean!) She takes my highest of high heels, where I have to stand on my very tip toes to even wear, and she walks around in them like it’s nothing! Well, I guess she is getting a lot of practice. She does this almost daily.

I was talking to my sis in law, Kat, who has a 2 year old, too. Check our her cutie here. Anyway, she tells me that Diella wears what she puts on her. Really?? Kids do that? Doesn’t that make life just a little too easy? Aria insists on picking out her own outfit every day and night. She usually changes a few times throughout the day, too. She often times wears dresses to bed. What am I saying… she wears a dress to bed 98% of the time. But, really, I don’t mind that she wants to pick out her own outfits. I like to see her go through her options and to see which she’ll pick today. But… what are we going to do once the weather turns cold? Should we go cold turkey on the flip flops? Get toe tights? She also doesn’t like sleeves. In fact, she has forgotten what they are! I wore a long sleeved shirt the other day, and Aria asked “mama, why are you wearing a coat?” I told her it was just long sleeves, not a coat. She asked me again “mama, why are you wearing a coat”. I guess I have myself a summer baby!

Ever since Aria saw our friend, Jenn, getting her hair cut a few months ago, she has been obsessed with scissors and hair cuts. She pretends that everything is scissors, and pretends to cut her hair or my hair. A few things she’s pretended were scissors are the hands on a play clock, her hair clips, the letter U (it’s bendy). I can’t even remember all she’s used to pretend to cut hair. She’ll cut, and say clip clip. She was playing with playdough when we were in Cali, and there were playdough scissors. She handed them to me, and said “these are dangerous, mama”. I told her it was OK, that these ones weren’t dangerous, and that she could play with them. Her eyes lit up, and she instantly took those scissors to her hair and started trying to cut! Uh oh!! She also likes to “fix” my hair. She sprays my hair, brushes it, and then messes with it. She likes it when I braid her hair. I can get a French braid all the way down her head now that her hair is long enough. She calls it a “bride”. She likes braids especially bc then her hair is long, bc the braid stretches out her curls. She really wants long hair.

Aria keeps asking to go to preschool. I’m not sure why? We were out driving around, and she asked to go to preschool. I asked if she knew what preschool was? Of course, she said yes (even if she didn’t). I told her that when she went to preschool, she had to go there all by herself. She said “I can drive the car?!” I told her ummmm no! Mama would drive and you would go to preschool, and I would drive back home and come to get you later. She said “OK let’s go to preschool!” I told her I didn’t know where one was right now. She said “mama, I wanna talk about it!” Where did that come from. Oh yeah, time out ;-)

Ah! Aria can finally ride her tricycle all by herself! She got it for her 1st birthday from her Uncle Chris. She can finally pedal around! She swerves to the left always, though, and hasn’t gotten the steering down yet, but we’re getting there ;-)

We were driving home one day, and Aria wanted pizza, so I stopped at lil Caesar’s for some hot n ready pizza. I told her we would get a big pizza. She said “no, mama! I want a little pink one!” Lately she wants everything to be pink. Her water, her milk…. Her pizza. So we use a lot of food dye to pink-ify everything. Matthew was getting her a cheese sammy the other day, and Aria told him she wanted a blue sandwich. Matthew told her he couldn’t make her a blue sandwich. To this, Aria said “Mama can make me a blue sandwich”. So, Matthew’s competitive nature kicked in ;-), and out came the blue food dye. For some reason, when blue food dye is put on bread, it looks more green. I guess bread must be yellowy (is that a word?) Matthew handed her the sandwich, and she said (with an expression on her face like an annoyed teenager) “this is not blue! This is green!” I said “OK, Veruca” seriously!

She’s suddenly interested in sign language again. She watched her sign language video and now has all the signs memorized. Mommy, daddy, blanket, sleep, story, friend, ball, thank you, you’re welcome, please, milk, eat, bath, more, cereal, baby, help… I think that is all. I think bc she knew a lot of them when she was a baby, it was easy for her to remember again. She made up her own for “friend” though. Even when the video is doing the correct sign, she does her own. She hugs herself really tight. So tight she closes her eyes. I like that sign for friend better!

She likes to teach Chanson to do things. She likes to get him to repeat after her, and so she looks at him and says bababababa or gagagagaga. She tried to teach him to jump the other day. That was pretty funny to watch! He was in his Johnny jump up, and he wasn’t jumping, so Aria tried to show him how. She also wants to put him in dresses. She claims he likes dresses. I told her that only girls wear dresses. She told me “but mama! He is a girl” ;-)

Lately Aria wants to pretend we’re other people. For awhile, I was Amy and she was Lauren. I mean, she went 3 days calling me Amy. Then, she decided my name is LaLa (no, she’s never seen TellyTubbies… and that is intentional! I can’t watch that psychedelic show and remain sane… or semi-sane…) so I told her that her name was Bing Bing. So, that was our names for 2 days. Then yesterday, she decided my name was Mama pig. What? Thanks Aria!

She has connected that her Mina is mama’s mama. She asked me the other day “Is Mina your mama?” She sometimes calls Mina “mom” bc I call her that. She’ll say it with emphasis, and then look at us with a look that says “did you just hear I called her mom?” like she’s doing something risky or something. She does the same thing when she calls Grampa, Dad.

She still gets treats for going potty (not every time… she does have some teeth left). I got these Welch’s fruit snacks so that she was at least getting some fruit in her sugar. She would take the orange ones and talk into them like they were phones (just like she does with Cashews). She always talks to Auntie Janice on the orange phone for some reason. She’d have a whole convo with her on her orange slice phone, and when she said “bye” I’d ask her “what did she say” and Aria would respond every time “pleeeeease”. (since we always say “what do you say” and she knows she’s supposed to say please).

Speaking of potty… she’s still doing great! She doesn’t have accidents at all. Well, I shouldn’t say at all. She did pee the bed the other night… but it’s very rare. She was going potty today, and I asked her “do you want some privacy?” and her face lit up and she said “yeah!” So I walked out. She called out from the bathroom “mama! I wanna eat it” so I ran back in, knowing that whatever she had she could not eat. I asked her what she wanted to eat!? She said “privacy!” It took me a second… but since I asked if she wanted some privacy… she thought I was going to go get it, and it was her potty treat. So, I had to further explain ;-)

We were sitting at her table on a beautiful morning, eating breakfast, and Aria looks at me and says “mama, you’re old”. I promptly put her up for adoption.

We sure have had a fun August... and Sept so far! I still can't believe it's Sept! The 2 weeks we spent with my brother, Adam, and Sarah and my cutie pie nieces made August FLY by.I don't even know where to start with the FUN we had!

When we got to their house, Adam took Aria up to Sydney and Christina’s rooms, and at each thing he showed her, she said, in an airy and drawn out voice “wow!” And you should’ve seen her when the DVD came down from the ceiling in the van! It was like she entered paradise or something! Needless to say, she had an absolute blast playing with Sydney and Christina. From morning to night! She misses them now. She wants big sisters ;-) She also loved (loves) Adam and Sarah. She keeps asking where they are now. She kept calling Adam “my uncle” Where is my uncle?

Aria is on her 1st amusement park ride here. She had so much fun!! This ride goes around and up and down at the same time. I was really nervous for her to go on the ride all by herself, and thought she might cry. Ummm... I was slightly wrong ;-)

We went to the Aquarium, too! It was fun! Aria got to pet a starfish ;-)

We went to the beach at Monterey. The tide came up and surprised Aria. It came up over her knees and she started bawling! Poor girl! But she had a great time playing in the sand. This was the 1st time she saw the ocean ;-)

Aria got sick right before we left and sick again as we left. Not sure if allergies or cold, but she was very stuffed up. After Aria asked me a question, Sydney asked her “why are you calling your mommy, Bobby?” Bc of her stuffed nose, mommy sounded like Bobby.

She had several “1sts” in Cali. 1st time seeing ocean, 1st trip to McDonalds. 1st French fries. Saw her 1st real rainbow, 1st hairclips (that she didn’t rip out within seconds of putting in). 1st time she pulled someone’s hair. 1st time hitting.

OK so the last 2 aren’t so good… but we dealt with it, and she stopped ;-) I was shocked at the hairpulling! I thought to myself she has never done that before! Then I remembered… only 1 of her friends at home has long enough hair to pull. ;-)

Chanson had a few firsts too…. Like his 1st food, lemon meringue pie. Yes I said lemon meringue pie. A neighbor came over and gave him a taste. Me and Sarah almost fainted, I think. He’d never had anything but milk until then. The neighbor was a super sweet woman, who meant no harm, so I couldn’t be mad!

Then, the other day, Aria stuck her sucker in his mouth! He is not going to like it when he gets rice cereal!

Chanson had a great ol’ time in Cali, too! It was funny bc Haley (the German Shepherd) kept bringing the ball to Chanson. Wherever Chanson was laying, sitting, hanging out, Haley would drop the ball on him. Then she’d wait there, like Chanson was going to throw it! Haley must have intuition that Chanson will be a good ball player ;-)

Like I mentioned before, while we were there, Aria was surprisingly potty trained! Aria saw Sydney say she needed to go potty, and went into the bathroom to go... and I guess it just clicked for Aria! After that, she wanted to go on potty and wear undies. SO we went and bought her undies and Sydney kept taking her to the potty (at 1st Sydney got a treat when Aria did.. talk about motivation!) Aria got to eat mnm's if she went potty. I asked Aria if she wanted an mnm, and she said "edamame?" haha!! She didn't even know what an mnm was! NOW when she asks for Edamame, she sometimes asks for mnms by mistake.

A few other things she is doing since coming home… she says “nuh huh” where the “huh” part is sung with 3 syllables. Cracks me up. And when she says no, she adds an ah sound to the end. Noahhh. Valley girl! Haha!

So, some Aria funnies ;-) Can't go without those, right?

It was Itzhak Perlman’s birthday on 8/31. If you don’t know, he’s the most amazing violinist that has ever been. Plus, he returned the letters I wrote to him when I was little (or young, I should say ;-) He is my childhood hero. Here is Itzhak playing what I dreamed of playing my whole childhood. I finally got to play in in HS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR8ABKpwm7w. Haha ok I went on a tangent there… back to Aria. I told her it was Itzhak Perlman’s birthday and she said, with squinty eyes, and high, questioning voice “Pizza Perlman”??

We were looking at one of her fav books which is pictures of all sorts of animals. She kept going to the Hippopotamus and she’d stress each syllable. Now that I write it, it’s not that funny haha! But, I guess you had to be there.

She calls sunscreen, “sunscream” and swimsuit “swimsoup”

She found a long dress in her closet. It was all the way in the back, and I’d forgotten about it. It was in the “doesn’t yet fit” part of her closet. Well, she wanted to put it on, and guess what? It fits. And she won’t take it off. Ever. She actually has been asking for long dresses like her princesses for a long time now. Now that she has one, there’s no going back. Funny thing is, I was the same way. I refused to wear pants all of kindergarten. My Aunt Ruth Ann (and mom? Did you make some too, mom?) made me long dresses. I still have one of mine, and I tried to put it on Aria but it is a few inches too long. Funny thing is… it’s a dress I wore in Kindergarten when I was 5 & 6, and will fit Aria before she is 3 ;-)

Aria is funny with her excuses. It always starts with “Hold on! I was just ____” insert excuse. Example. Aria sticks her sucker into Chanson’s mouth. I tell her she can’t do that! Babies can’t eat suckers! Aria says “but Mama, I was just pretending. See?” (sticks sucker back in his mouth).

When we were at the airport, Aria saw a skeleton sitting on a chair, with a menu and some food. She says to me "mama, those are bones!" I told her, yes they were. Then she said, questioningly "the bones are eating food??"

I think I’ve mentioned before that Chanson is quite the tooter. LOUD! You can’t believe that these come from a baby! So, we’re at the store the other day, and I’m holding Chanson, and Aria is walking. Chanson toots loud, and Aria pipes up “Mama! You TOOTied!” oh my gosh, how do I get out of that one!

Chanson is doing a lot these days! He’s getting better at sitting up on his own. You can’t just plop him down, and he’ll sit there. He’s still wobbly, but can hold himself up for enough time to take a picture ;-) He’s getting there ;-)

We got Chanson an exersaucer while we were in Cali, so he’d have somewhere to play. He has gotten really good at playing with toys the way they’re supposed to be played with. He’d spin the spinning rattle, and even move the beads from one end to the other. He holds and shakes rattles. He has a toy where you press the lever, and the lights and music play. He presses the lever to make that happen. Today he was playing with a toy with a book on top, with a page that is able to be turned. He can turn the page ;-) He loves loves to kick. He kicks a hanging ball from one of his toys – that is one of his fav toys (Thanks Liz – you were right!)

He moves around a lot on the ground. He’ll start out under the toy where he kicks the hanging ball, and he ends up completely off the mat, facing the other direction, a few feet away from where he started.

Let's see what else? He's just generally the happiest baby alive ;-) He laughs and smiles a lot. He's still really easy going.. I hope that never changes ;-) I just love them both sooooooooooooo much!

Potty Trained!

I have soooo much to write, but have barely been on my computer over the last month. I will write a big long blog soon (I know... you will all wait with bated breath!)

BUT

I had to share! Aria is officially 100% potty trained! Woo hoo! And... thank you Sydney ;-) (I'll write more about that in the long blog ;-)

She's gone over 2 weeks now with very few accidents. We had one evening with lots of accidents, and since then, an occasional one here and there. Over the last week, though, she's only had 1 accident, and is diaper-free even at night and during naps!

BUT

she may have several cavities from all the treats she's getting. When does one stop giving treats to their little angles for going on the potty? Should I still be giving myself treats? Oh yeah, I get treats when she goes ... ;-) Potty training is fun!