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Happy birthday little guy!

Visiting friends

We're on our way to visit friends pre-holiday. Rich's college friend Adam has three boys, 10, 8, and 6 years old. We last saw them a year ago, and E was particularly taken with Connor, the middle boy.

Driving on our way back from seeing them, Elizabeth leaned forward and said dreamily, mommy, do you know what I'm finkin' about?

I'm finkin'about.....Connor! she said with a smile.

She talked about him for a long time after (never mentioning the other two).

Rich has got his eyes on this already.

more milestones

In September, my friend Vickie (now a private blog so I won't link) posted that she let her daughter, just a month older than Andrew, pick out which book was read to her at night. This never even occurred to me as an option, so we tried it. And darn if Andrew didn't pick Goodnight Moon every single time. We'd offer 2-4 books, rearrange them, and he consistently picked Goodnight Moon. And then he started letting out a little giggle (a real giggle, heh-heh, not the inhalation hiccup) when we would open the book.

He's still a big Goodnight Moon fan (a book that never really appealed all that much to Elizabeth - she liked it but could take it or leave it), but now he loves Doggies by Sandra Boynton.
Each dog makes him giggle. And nine dogs - well, the 9 dogs howl on a moonlit night. Aaaooooooooooooooooohhh.

Two nights ago, I opened to that page and he let out a very gentle, tentative ah-ooh. Last night I took Andrew into the bathroom, where Rich was getting Elizabeth ready for bed, to show Rich what he was doing. But there was too much other excitement in the bathroom so he wasn't interested, and then somehow Doggies ended up dunked in the (clean) toilet (perhaps this is TMI, but when Andrew is in the bathroom when Elizabeth is conducting her evening business she calls him the poop grabber. Not that he's ever actually grabbed any poop, but that's merely because we have prevented said grabbing from occurring). Luckily, Marshalls today had another copy, and when I brought it home this afternoon Andrew again tested out Ah-ooh. And then looked so pleased when Elizabeth and I laughed with him and started howling ourselves.

And tonight, when Gee left for the day, he waved and I swear he said bye bye.

And he's also become a pointer. Just happened a couple of weeks ago. He wasn't doing any pointing at all, until suddenly he was. He makes another litle sound when he points - Rich thinks it sounds like 'look!' but I think it sounds like 'wha?'

These are the fun milestones. Can't wait to hear what he says next.

a little football

Some pics from September, our first football game of the season. Since the camera cord is MIA, time to catch up.

We picnicked on the lawn pre-game. A friend was married that weekend in Charlottesville, and while we couldn't make the wedding, we did make the post-wedding next day football tailgating party.
We had a great time.

Elizabeth really does intently watch much of the game. Andrew was pretty into it, too.

Though I've forgotten the boy actually did nap at one point. Even in a stadium full of nearly 60K people. Now, quiet house, no one around? Not so much.

He does love football, though. TV doesn't capture his attention the way it did (does) Elizabeth's. He'll glance at her shows, or dance to music. But when football comes on? He loves it. It even merits the special Andrew chuckle. (And once we have find the camera cable, you'll hear it too - actually managed to get it on video).

Indestructible

I think it was Rich - or possibly Ryan - who first started calling Aggie indestructible. So, a hefty bill (ouch) later, we find out the dog has an UTI. A little medicine and she'll be fine.

At 13, anytime something seems a little off with her, I think, ok, this is the beginning of the end. So tonight I asked Rich what else the vet said, and he said, do you really want to know? Of course! Well, her bloodwork was perfect and the vet said she's in excellent shape.

This dog is going to live forever. Or maybe it will just feel like forever.

(I kid, I kid. But you try sleeping while she's yipping her fool head off for 40 minutes every night. She's still in lockdown for a few days - we hate to do it, as she is generally great at sleeping in E's room or ours, but you try stepping in a cold puddle of pee after you're awakened at 3 am by a crying child and see how you like it - seriously there's only so much we can handle, and we are maxed out right now.)

Poor Old Dog

We depart from the usual stories of our children for one about our poor old dog. This isn't an Ol' Yeller story. She's more or less fine - she goes to the vet tomorrow for a check up.

We've had Aggie since Susan adopted her as a 1 yr old pup from the DC animal shelter in 1997. She was not treated very well by her previous owners and kind of went "pound crazy" just before Susan rescued her. To say she was a challenge out of the gate was an understatement (about half a dozen cable remotes, a roommate's shoes, and the linoleum floor in the group rental house can attest to that) Over the years she's become a very loving, loyal dog. Overall, she's adjusted very well to the addition of Elizabeth and Andrew. It may be though that her age is catching up to her.

Ag is over 13 yrs old, and she's beginning to show her age. Even when she was 11 or 12, she could muster the energy of a 2 yr old pup. Not anymore. She has more and more difficulty getting up and down stairs and would rather saunter for walks than her former brisk pace.

Ag in snow (from 2005)

The past few weeks have been a real challenge with Ag. She's been doing her business in the house, particularly on the rugs in the living room, Andrew's room, and Elizabeth's room (we recently bought a steam cleaner which has come in handy). She wants/needs to go outside much more frequently that usual, so I'm thinking it might be a treatable condition. Still, it could just be a sign of her age. She's sneaky - she'll quietly slink off to a room, do her business, then go curl up somewhere until we find the mess. The last straw was the other night when I went into Elizabeth's room in the middle of the night to find 3 spots and a pile of poop. Unpleasant. She was still curled up in the dog bed in E's room acting as if nothing was wrong. Could be that she's sending a message. More than likely though she just needs to be checked out, thus the trip to the vet tomorrow.

We now have her overnight in her crate in the kitchen. She doesn't mind the crate but has really become accustomed to sleeping upstairs. She whimpers, whines, and yelps for about 40 mins each night. We feel bad, but we just can't trust her in the middle of the night in our room or anyone else's. Hopefully, we can give her some meds and get past this troublesome time.

And now back to your regularly scheduled escapades of Elizabeth and Andrew...

- Rich

Bath Time

A quick one as it's getting late and kind of tired from a long weekend. And still fighting this #$!% cold.

I've posted on the bath time routine before. That was only with Elizabeth though. The routine is quite different with Andrew in the mix.

Andrew is a very busy little guy. The shelf that runs the length of our tub is at the perfect height for him to peer at and grab things. He'll start with toys then move on to the shampoo, conditioner, body wash, body scrub, etc. It keeps him entertained which is important. Except that he is constantly up and down, up and down, grabbing something, playing with it for a minute or two, then getting back up there to grab something else. Eventually, most of the contents of the shelf ends up floating in the tub.

Since he's not walking yet, he's not all that surefooted and so I keep one hand on him at pretty much all times. We used to use a handy little seat that would keep him slightly contained. He learned pretty quickly how to climb up out of the seat which became more dangerous than just keeping him in the tub. So the seat sits on the shelf.

Elizabeth likes the seat and is still small enough to wedge herself into it. It's kind of funny. She really gets a kick out of sitting in there. It makes it easier to wash her up because she actually needs help climbing out so she's somewhat held hostage. Most of the time she doesn't use the seat, which makes it challenging to wash her up while keeping a hand on the little guy. Not to mention that she likes to "help" me wash Andrew which mostly amounts to dumping buckets of water on the little guy's head when I'm washing his hair. This amuses Elizabeth to no end. Tonight, she took it upon herself to put some conditioner on Andrew's hair as well. He didn't get any in his eyes and actually seemed to enjoy the attention from his big sister.

Washing Elizabeth's hair is exhausting. It's a constant negotiation usually resulting in my dumping water on her head and causing her to cry, "My eyes! My eyes!" It's just water. She can be quite the drama queen when she wants to be. I have to do this twice - shampoo and conditioner - because of all the frizz and knots in her hair. It's a tough routine and usually leaves me pretty exhausted/exasperated.

I had to take my hands off Andrew temporarily tonight to finish Elizabeth's hair. In the seconds that took, Andrew managed to pull himself up by the knobs of the faucet and began dancing around while shrieking with delight. I could not stop laughing. It's not all bad.

Forgot to Add: Elizabeth did something that she has never done after the bath. After she was completely ready for bed, she noticed all the toys, etc. in the tub and said that she wanted to clean it up. She hopped in the tub and proceeded to put everything back on the shelf in mostly the right places. Daddy was very pleased!

- Rich