hi

Robin likes to climb into the crib with Liam.  (Liam looks like he has teeth in this picture.  I assure you, however, that only the bottom left one has started to cut, not the top two--and he didn't have any when the photo was taken.)

Robin built a snowman with his Uncle Dan before our Superbowl party, while Mama and Dada shoveled the street to make more parking spaces.  At Robin's request, it had two heads.

Where's the baby?  I can't see him!  Blue walls, blue sheet, blue sleepsack, blue pajamas... where is he?

Liam has graduated to sitting in the big bathtub for baths!

Robin wanted me to take this picture while we were doing crafts.

I still love those moments when Robin announces that he wants to hold Liam!

More pictures from Robin's perspective

My parents gave me a fresh tea seed kit for my aerogarden, and I reaped the first rewards in a mug of mint tea the other day.  Actually, I need to drink a lot of mint tea so the other plants have a chance to catch up.

Robin opening the Valentine Toy Story Hot Wheels cars he got from my parents

Liam opening his giraffe

Robin wanting to hold/hug Liam again.  Hooray!

Licking the spoon after helping me make chocolate covered strawberries

Liam thought the best part of receiving valentines was playing with the envelopes

As I mentioned above, Liam has finally cut his first tooth.  He's also becoming a pro at getting around.  His crawling gets stronger every day, as does his ability to pull to standing.  When it began, he only did it in his crib, but he's starting to use other pieces of furniture.  He's also starting to cruise more.  I really do think that his time crawling will be very fleeting.

I think I might have gotten a piece of a real dream from Robin the other day.  I had to wake him up the last time we went to storytime, because he had a hard time putting himself to sleep the night before.  I came into his room, said hello, and started opening his drapes.  He looked at me and asked where the new helicopters were.  Nobody had given him any kind of new helicopter toy that I was aware of, so I'm pretty sure I interrupted a dream there.  Robin dreams about helicopters!

I suppose I might as well get the bad news out.  In April, Dean's job will be ending.  They're laying off 60% of the people remaining in his department, and he's not going to survive the cut unless a major miracle happens (read 70% of the people on the "safe" list would have to take voluntary termination in order for him to still have a position.)  So yeah, things kind of suck right now.  The good news is we have a cushion.  Between severance, savings, and unemployment, we'll be okay for a while.  But we really don't know what's going to be happening on the job front, who will be working, and who will take care of the kids if we both have to work.  It's a big mystery, and not a fun one.  So... well, that's the news from the Rhoadarmer household right now.

Liam's on the move!

About a week into February, Liam figured out how to move beyond scooting and really crawled.  He can now find us in another room if we leave him on the floor (provided the two rooms are close together.)  He can also get into the toys, things he isn't supposed to, and make a mess.  Whee!  Go Liam!

Here he comes!

However, Liam LOVES to walk.  I don't feel like he's very motivated to crawl because he'd much rather walk around.  He's been walking by holding our hands for more than two months now, and he's getting really good at it.  We all thought Liam was going to crawl much earlier than Robin did because he hit some of his earlier physical milestones (like sitting) much sooner than Robin, but I guess that won't always be the case.  (They both crawled around 8 months.)  However, I'm predicting an early walker.  I could be wrong, but he IS pulling to standing already, when he has good enough hand holds.  We'll see.

The above videos are from Feb 9.

Liam's crawling seems to be equally split between exploration and finding me.  Even since I began penning this post, he's gotten so much faster.  He'll find us by crawling halfway across the house if necessary.  Sometimes when I'm getting Robin ready for bed he'll crawl into the hallway to find me.  I'll often walk past him a few times as I go back and forth, getting Robin ready.  Each time I come back, he's turned in the direction I last disappeared into.  If I do this too many times, though, he'll start crying.  "I'm just trying to catch up to Mama so she'll pick me up, but she's too fast!  Waah!"

This video is from today.  See how much faster and stronger he is already!

Back in the Swing of Things

At the end of the week when the boys were sick, I needed to get them out of the house.  A semi-nice day provided the backdrop for a trip to the park.  Liam liked bouncing on the motorcycle

And swinging on the swing

Robin liked the bouncy butterfly

My boys!

Robin drew this picture all by himself.  I asked him to draw a head, and he made the rectangular box head, then gave it eyes and a mouth.  Then I drew the stick figure on a piece of scrap paper, pointed out how the lines represent the different body parts, and asked him to add them to his picture.

And he did!

Another crafting picture.  I love how he will examine something that he's trying to recreate to see the details.  He's either got an artistic mind, or an analytical one.

Robin did this all by himself.  He was playing with his foam alphabet puzzle and kept showing Dean the letters from his name.  The next thing Dean knew, he walked into the living room and saw Robin's name on the floor.  Good boy Robin!  He's getting a lot more familiar with letters lately and has learned most of the alphabet song now.  (I love that he sings "Now I remember my ABCs.")  He likes for me to spell the names of family and friends, and identifies the letters as we go.  He also knows how to spell "toy," because I wrote it on the bottom of some tupperware we gave him to play with.

His rendition of the ABCs currently sounds like this:
"A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
H, I, J, K,
M, N, N, N, O, P,
Q, U, S,
Y and Z.
Now I (re)member my ABCs,
next time you sing with me."

We had a superbowl party again this year, and Madonna did the halftime show.  One of her songs had, among other lyrics, "L-U-V Madonna...something Y-O-U."  After the singers repeated this several times, Robin joined in by singing the alphabet song.

The week after the boys were so sick, I discovered that the temperature was supposed to reach 61 on Monday.  Still desperate to get everyone out, I decided that we would visit the zoo.  I tried to invite some friends, but nobody could make it last minute.  This penguin talked to us!

This monkey swung in front of us right after we arrived.  That was neat!

This is the first time I let Robin take a picture with my new camera.  He doesn't quite know where to hold it yet.

Liam got to play the drums this time!

Liam's first ride on the carousel.  Robin first wanted to ride a tiger, but then when I told him he couldn't change his mind mid-ride because I was going to be hanging onto Liam, he decided he didn't want to ride on something that went up and down.  So he chose the stationary peacock instead.

He still smiled and laughed through the whole ride, at least.

One evening, Robin decided to sit behind Liam and "hold" him so he wouldn't fall backwards and get hurt.  He was being very protective/big brotherly that day.  They looked so cute together, I asked Robin if I could take a photo of them.  He said 'no.'  Then Dean asked if he could take a video, and Robin said 'yes.'  So here you are:

We got a TON of snow in early Feb.  Robin "helped" me shovel a little, and wandered around a lot.

I planned ahead though, and got a movie cued up and paused so he could go inside and start it for himself when he got cold, because I knew it would take me a long time to shovel a foot of snow, and he wouldn't last that long.  It was needed too, so I was glad I did it.

We got a total of 18 inches over two days.

Saturday was much warmer, so Robin had a ball playing in snow that was more than half as tall as he was.

I tried to build a "house" for Robin, although it didn't work as well as I'd hoped.  I started with a bucket and tried to make igloo blocks, but by the third one I couldn't get them out.  Then I just dug/packed.  Here it is (it's really hard to see though, the contrast isn't right.)

Dean dug a path from the back deck to the trees so he could shake the snow off of them, and from there most of the way to the composter.  Robin loved these "houses" more than the one I made.  Oh well.  It was fun to follow him through the special channels.

In the "bedroom" created by the table.

Tons of snow!

The other day I was burping Liam and he (as usual) held himself back a bit so he could look at me.  Then he picked up the burp rag and began wiping at my face with it.  He did this twice in one day.  It made me smile.  That's what we do with burp rags, after all!

On the day we did the crafts pictured above, we also made a giant (they were Jack and the Beanstalk themed.)  Robin wanted to make the giant anatomically correct.  We'd already drawn clothing on it, so I pointed out to him that you can't see those parts through your clothes.  Ah, kids.

Robin is sleeping less and less during naptime, but fortunately he's been very good at respecting quiet time these days.  His room is always a mess when quiet time is over, but that's worth it.  One day when I was helping him clean up in the evening, I noticed that his backpack was full.  Inside, I found a full set of clothes and pajamas.  He'd packed himself an overnight bag!  When he saw me looking at the contents he told me "we need go somewhere.  We need go Ama and Poppa's."

Not so healthy...

Robin (and Liam) had a spate of poor health in mid-January.  It started on the 16th, when Robin aspirated a piece of carrot he was eating for lunch.  The first thing he did was scream, and then he coughed and gagged and screamed and coughed and gagged some more.  I never worried that he couldn't breathe because he was crying through the whole episode, and after he stopped gagging I figured it was over.  However, three hours later, after the rest of lunch and some quiet time, he was still wheezing from the experience.  A call to the pediatrician and a trip to the ER confirmed that there was a bit of food in his right lung.  Luckily, he managed to cough it up on his own that evening (if he hadn't they would have had to anethesize him and scope it out) but they still wanted to keep him overnight to watch him and have the surgeon confirm it in the morning.

He wasn't allowed to eat or drink overnight, because if they'd had to take him into surgery they much prefer an empty stomach.  In order to keep him hydrated, then, he had to have an IV.  Poor little guy.  In order to keep him from interfering with the insertion of the IV they wrapped him up like a burrito in a sheet with just his one arm out.  I sat by his head to comfort him.  He didn't do too bad, and they managed to use a surface numbing agent so it didn't hurt him when they inserted it.  After they had him wrapped up but before they inserted the IV he told the nurse "please don't eat me."  At first I thought that was funny, but then realized it was probably part of a real fear.  He didn't know what was going on and they'd just told him they were turning him into a burrito.  :(
However, he didn't seem too terribly fazed by most of the experience.  He loved exploring the hospital and was running up and down the hallway and climbing on all the furniture (completely oblivious to the hour, although he was on overdrive after a while.)  He was a little worried about carrots after it was all over, however.  He now wants them cut very thin, and told me the next day that he doesn't want to choke again.  I told him I don't want him to choke again either, but he doesn't need to be afraid of carrots.

Between going to bed really late and waking up early in the hospital, Robin was pretty tuckered out the next day.  After his nap he was still tired, and wound up falling asleep again on the floor at the head of the stairs.  Fortunately, the following day he was completely normal again.  We went into the pediatrician for a follow up and they confirmed that everything seemed to be back to normal.

We then had a few days or normalcy.  One of the books we recently got from the library is called "Daddy Makes the Best Spaghetti," and is about a little boy helping his father make dinner and then the father getting the boy ready for bed.  Dean decided to emulate most of the book one night.  Here they're having a parade with the pots and utensils.

Robin helping to wash the vegetables

and ripping up lettuce for salads

Consulting the book to see what's next

Setting the table

Liam surrounded by toys, so he wouldn't get bored

Awww!

After giving Liam baths facing toward the wall for all this time (probably because that's the easiest angle for me to wash him from) I realized that I ought to spin him around so he can see Robin better.  I decided this mid-bath, and asked Robin to keep Liam from falling over while I maneuvered the baby tub.  They looked so cute together, I couldn't resist a picture.  Robin, however, did not want to pose for this one.

Facing each other!

The next health issue is that Liam has started giving us potential food allergy scares.  He hasn't had any reactions that are nearly as bad as Robin was when he had egg, but he got blotchy and red after starting a new food.  Said food has since been delayed for a month or two, and if it happens again we'll call the allergist and set him up with an appointment.

Still a happy boy, even though he's got red on his face.  It's weird though, because he was really sucking this new food down as though he really liked it, which I have a hard time picturing anybody doing to something they're allergic to--especially a single-ingredient food, not where it's mixed in with other good tastes.  It also started around his eye, making us wonder if he got something in that eye and the irritation spread.  Maybe.  We'll find out.  A few weeks after this, he did something similar with another new food, although the signs really pointed to getting food in his eye that time.  We tried that food again the next day and are *pretty sure* there's no allergy involved.  We're still being cautious though.

Robin wrote the M, H, and N all by himself!

A week after aspirating the carrot, Robin made another impromptu trip to the doctor (though not the ER this time.)  He started getting a cold over the weekend which progressed normally for a few days, but then one evening he started to wheeze.  The following day he was absolutely miserable.  He cried/whined/whimpered CONSTANTLY, even while eating, and he didn't want to do anything.  He was still wheezing too, so I called the pediatrician and they told us to come in.  (I probably would have called even if he wasn't wheezing, because he was just so completely miserable.  He stopped crying for a while when I sat him in front of the TV, though he slumped over sideways while watching, and even then he suddenly started crying at unpredictable intervals.)  Anyway, at the ped they confirmed that his airways were constricted and gave him some albuterol at the office.  Because he'd recently aspirated the carrot, they sent us to get some chest x-rays to see whether he got pneumonia from the previous respiratory irritation.  He didn't, so they didn't give us any antibiotics.  They did, however, send us home with a nebulizer and a prescription for more albuterol.  This sets Robin on the same path I was on as a kid.  They can't diagnose him with asthma unless this sort of thing happens repeatedly, but unless he was simply vulnerable because of the carrot, it's a first step toward asthma.  Poop.  After we started treating his lungs, Robin started turning back into himself.  It took him about a week to throw this cold off (during which time Liam caught it, and stuffed-up babies are NO FUN, especially at night) but he's doing much better now.  And I'm hoping we don't have to repeat this.

Since getting sick so much in a short period of time, Robin has started playing doctor.  We have a stethoscope, which I was using to listen to his lungs, and he now takes it, places it on multiple places on our chests/backs, and listens to us.  When he's finished, he puts the stethoscope over the back of his neck (that part makes me smile.)  He will also go get a toy or something to give to us, as our medicine.

The other day he also told me "I'm a doctor.  I'm a woman."  *grins*  There are certainly worse images of women that he can have!  (The funny thing is, though, while the majority of doctors he saw in the past few weeks were women, not all of them were.)

After the boys finally threw their colds, I was crazy to get out of the house.  However, this post is plenty long so I'll save those pics for another one.