Dexter, by the Numbers

Dexter is kind of in to measuring things these days.  More specifically, he's in to measuring how big something is, or how much he likes something, either by holding out his hands to show you how much he likes it, or by assigning it a number.

So, for instance, he likes trains 90.

He, surprisingly, likes ducks 900.

He has decided that Mama loves him more than infinity.

Grandma has said she loves him more than 50 dollars.  He finds that fairly hysterical.

And in a frank, serious discussion (likely held while Dex was sitting on the potty, as that is where all serious discussions happen these days) Dexter told John that he used to like sleeping 30.  But now he likes it ZERO.

And that's our boy.  So completely filled with separation anxiety these days that bed time has turned in to an hour of him yelling out for Daddy, before he finally goes to sleep.  If we're fantastically lucky, he only wakes up yelling for Daddy once during the night, before waking at 6AM or so and yelling for Daddy until his clock turns yellow at 6:30.  Most nights we are not so lucky.  I say "we" like I am really involved in this.  I am not.  I am responsible for the baby, and fixing her if she wakes up in the middle of the night (thankfully, she doesn't do that often).  John has been in charge of fixing the stubborn, persistent, almost-four-year-old.  Bless John's heart and very very sleepy body.  Because this is, honestly, way worse than it ever was having a newborn baby.

Hopefully this is a pain in the ass phase that shall, eventually, pass.

The boys are in Strasburg today, visiting the Choo Choo Barn with its huge model train exhibit.  Erin and I are hanging out at home, vacuuming and doing laundry and finally taking the Halloween window clings off the windows.  Know what works awesome for storing window clings?  A static cling photo album.  One of the old school ones.  Good luck finding one in any store, ever, but if you get lucky and stumble across one on the bottom row of the photo album section in your new Super Wal-Mart, snatch it up.  It works great.

Dex also digs his new Inchimals.  He's been measuring cars, trains, etc.

We had snow Christmas morning, but it melted by afternoon.  Played outside for a while and said hi to our friend Tee the Horse

From a couple weeks before Christmas.  Wish Erin was looking at the camera.  But, alas, she is far too fascinated by the tree to be looking at me.

Case in point.  I'm not sure how I am going to entertain her when we take down the tree...

Merry Christmas!

I totally needed this to be my Christmas card picture this year.  Alas, I took it like a week after I ordered my cards, so it was not meant to be.

Merry Christmas!  Hope you are having a fantastic day!

Love,
Alissa, John, Dexter, and Erin

Santas We Have Known

I just haven't had the energy this year to trek to the mall with 2 kids, stand in line, and do the traditional Mall Santa scream-fest.  Dexter likes Santa and all, but mostly from a distance.  He's not psyched about actually going close to the big man.  Plus, we've seen Santa already this year.  Times four...

There, of course, was Santa at Daddy's work.  A very cool Santa who has snow globes.

We also saw Santa at the MOMS Club Christmas party.  This Santa was met at the door by a huge gaggle of excited children.  And he arrived on a fire truck.  He was a very nice Santa.

It, quite honestly, brought a tear to my eye to see Dex talking to Santa so earnestly.  I have no idea what he was talking about.  In all likelihood he was simply asking Santa for a candy cane.

Santa said he hadn't held such a little baby in a very long time...

I thought we were going to have to do some fast story telling on the morning after the MOMS Club party, when Dexter stated that the Santa at the MOMS dinner had a longer beard than the Santa at Daddy's work. And OH!  SHIT!  Quick!  Think up a good story!  But John did some good redirection (LOOK!  I saw a light!) and all was forgotten.  So we think.  Not much is ever really forgotten in this boy's mind.  Unless it's something like me telling him to hang up his coat.

Santa came for a visit on the fire truck one evening.  I almost forgot he was coming, and then saw the note on the fridge and wrote "Santa" on my hand.  During dinner I got John's attention and showed him my hand, not wanting to talk about Santa coming to visit in case he came so late that Dex was already in bed.  It didn't work.  Dex simply looked up and asked, "Mama, why did you write Santa on your hand?"  Damn three year old child who can read...

He was not psyched about talking or even coming close to this Santa.  Apparently fire trucks freak him out.  After this Santa visit he asked why Santa always comes on fire trucks.  And his Hess fire truck has been delivering presents to everyone all week long.  Although Santa has also been delivering presents via Hess airplane.  Faster than reindeer, I suppose.

Finally, Santa came to visit at a cookie exchange we went to with our Bel Air mom friends.  Dex wanted nothing to do with him, except to go up and ask Santa, "Do you like candy canes?"  Santa was a little confused, til he figured out that really Dexter was just asking Santa for a candy cane.  That's all Santa is good for in Dexter's book.  Candy canes.  He likes candy canes.

I think we're kind of in the holiday spirit here.  We've got some presents under the tree, although we still have more to wrap.  But with kids as cute as these, who needs more presents, really?

Santa! I know him!

We had a nice weekend with Aunt Christy, who came down to meet Erin for the first time.  Dexter and John picked her up at the train station, which had Dex all jazzed.  He wanted to know if Percy was going to be at the Parksburg train station.  Because, you know, Thomas is at the Strasburg station.  So why wouldn't Percy be at Parksburg?  I think he was ok with not seeing Percy, because he got to see TWO trains when picking up Christy, and the lights turned different colors.  It was, apparently, way cool.  I don't know.  I didn't go.  Erin and I were at Girlie Movie Night.

Saturday morning Santa was at John's work again, so we went to have breakfast with the big guy and his very nice wife.

My mom saw this picture and said it didn't look like Dex was any more thrilled about seeing Santa than he was last year.  Which, although it appears that way, actually was not true.  He was really very chatty and friendly with Santa, and was quite happy the entire morning.

Both Santa and Mrs Claus commented on how different and how much better Dexter was this year, compared to last year.  Which is impressive, really, because Santa sees a whole lot of kids, and only sees them once a year.  So the fact that he remembered what Dex was like last year and compared it to this year...  Well, apparently he made an impression last year.  Perhaps not such a good one.

When I told Dexter we were going to Breakfast with Santa at Daddy's work, he asked if Santa was going to have his snow globes there.  My tired old brain had completely forgotten about the snow globes.  Dexter's had not.  When we entered the room he immediately made a beeline for Santa's snow globes.

Oh, yeah.  The baby.  Erin went, too.  She was mostly oblivious.  She's easy these days.

End of the morning, post-french-toast-stick checking out of the snow globes.  Again.  Some more.

I do believe that might be a smile.  In the general vicinity of Santa.

It was nice having Aunt Christy hang out with us for the weekend.

She fed Erin her second official bottle.  Erin was unimpressed, still.  I have different nipples on order.  For the bottle.  Not for me.  We'll see if that helps her out.

She was also SOUND ASLEEP at 7:30 while Christy was trying to give her a bottle.  Apparently this being a baby thing is very very tiring.

A Whole Lotta Firsts

Holy hell, has this ever been a day.  And I still have Girlie Movie Night to go to tonight.  With the baby.

Sometimes, even when you don't think you can do something and you are sure it's going to go horribly, you have to just do it.  And, surprise!  Your kids are actually far more awesome that you thought.

A very very kind gentleman I used to work with at MHBA died this week.  His funeral was today.  At a Catholic church.  In Baltimore.  And John had to work.  And I had 2 kids with me.  And somehow we all survived.  Some firsts for us:

First time using our new Garmin GPS.  Love it, love it, love it way more than our old TomTom.

First time nursing a baby in a church.  I strolled in to the church, was busy trying to settle Dex, who was freaked out by the massive number of people milling around.  And eventually found a priest, asked him where I could nurse a baby.  I think we ended up in the Sacrament room?  I haven't the slightest idea what happens in there.  Is that where the bread and the wine is stored?  I promise I didn't leave a poopy diaper in the garbage can in there.

First Catholic mass for both kids.  First time in a church for both kids. Dex went to a memorial service at a fairly unconventional church last summer.  Hell, what's that place called?  I blogged about it, and said I wanted a service like that.  But I can't remember what the church is called...  Anyway - Dex spent the entire time watching his train video (with the sound turned off) on his IPad.  And God didn't even strike the church with lightening or anything for our irreverence.  Dude - it kept him quiet.  And the baby slept most of the time in my Ergo carrier.  I had to stand for most of mass to keep her asleep, but God didn't shoot lightening at us for that, either.  Thanks for the lenience, there, big man.  It was actually a lovely service, as far as Catholic masses go.  The singer was excellent, and the priest spoke fondly of my friend (who was 94 when he died, and had been a faithful member of that church for more than 80 years).

First time I've been in a catholic church and did NOT go for communion.  I tried.  But we were in the hallway with the baby for a few minutes and by the time I got back inside it was done.  They're fast in that church.

First time nursing a baby in a Wendy's fast food place.  Yeah.  We're high class.

First time using a cover when nursing this baby.  I usually don't give a damn who sees me nursing and who might catch a glimpse of boob.  But the clientele in the Wendy's in Baltimore seemed like they might appreciate a cover.

First time dropping a french fry on a nursing baby...  Ooops!

We all survived and made it home in one piece, with not too much crying.  We even made a Bomboy's detour, because Mama needed some chocolate after this day.

Erin, by the way, had her first bottle last night.  I think she was mildly unimpressed.  She did eventually drink some.  I was hoping that bottle feeding would go way faster than nursing her at 10PM.  But, no.  Not so much.  That child sleeps like the dead, man.  It's impossible to wake her up enough to get her to eat.  With a little luck she'll be sleeping from that feeding through til 7:30 AM in a few weeks.  She's making it to 5AM now, usually.

Here's a picture of the kids in front of the wrapping paper they painted yesterday.  Dex did all the hard work.  Erin just added some footprints.

Thanks

On this Thanksgiving Day, I give thanks to:

This guy, who, just in one day, got Dexter out of bed and fed him breakfast, got the baby out of bed and changed her diaper, watched the parade with Dexter, blew leaves in to piles, cooked a turkey, made cranberry sauce, carved a turkey, and used his magic super powers to put the crying baby down for multiple naps.  Oh, and also put Dexter to bed, and put the garbage out, and is currently Christmas shopping online.  I love you, babe.  Thank you for making life so much better and easier for me.

These kiddos, who make life a million times more challenging and a billion times more fulfilling than I ever imagined.

Dexter, who makes me laugh so many times a day.  The other day he came home from school with a picture that said "Draw what you are thankful for."  I asked Dexter what his picture was about.  He said "First I said I was thankful for Erin.  And then I said I was thankful for ME."  Ah, that's my boy.  Melt my heart, and then kill me with laughter.  Today when we were watching the parade we were talking again about who we were thankful for.  He said "I am thankful for me.......  And I am thankful for the people on TV."

Erin, who makes me slow down and just think seven or eight times a day while I am feeding her.  Who makes me remember that a fan can be a pretty entertaining thing.  Who also makes me thankful for Oxy-Clean, because, man, can she explode some poop out of some diapers.

Also, I checked about seven times today to see if her pants were on backwards.  No, the tag was in the back.  But what gives with those two random pockets on the front of her pants??

This silly dog.  As I was taking pictures today John said "Really?  You're thankful for the stupid DOG?"  Well, yes.  He's annoying, but he's so good to the kids.  And also at cleaning food off the floor.  And he's definitely better than having no dog at all.

Sunshine, warm weather, leaves, and footballs.  And also ear muffs.  All of which allowed us to spend a couple hours outside today, playing in the front yard.

VIDEO

VIDEO

Dexter's ability to, kind of sort of, get himself dressed in the morning.  It's infuriating and entertaining all at the same time.

Apple pie.  Partially because this pie I made is damn good this time.  But mostly because it's really pretty fun to make an apple pie with Dexter.  He's a kick-ass apple eater.

School.  They send home random stuff like this.  But they really are doing fantastic things with Dexter's little mind.  And holy hell, thank the lord they do crafts.  Because I really really don't.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  It occupied its fair share of our afternoon (we recorded it for easier viewing).

The boys watching the parade this morning.

Bailey's.  And also, coffee.  Nuff said.

Thanksgiving Dinner.  And also leftovers for the next week or so.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Pardon Me, I Was Mistaken

Erin's procedure report from her second attempt at a spinal tap came over email today.  And pardon me, I was wrong.  It didn't take five times to get a sample of spinal fluid.  It took SIX.  They tried twice on Tuesday morning without ultrasound, and then once with ultrasound before they finally got a sample.  My poor baby girl.  The sedation doctor did joke that she should never ever try to have an epidural during childbirth.  Sorry, kiddo - natural childbirth all the way for you!  :-)

Here's some pictures from Saturday of last weekend.  We went to our cool Christmas tree farm to tag our tree for Christmas.  Dexter was convinced that we were going to bring home a tree that day.  And he wanted a HUGE tree - Grandpa Cowan would have been proud of the trees he picked.  He said he likes Christmas because he likes to look at the star on the tree and he likes the train under then tree.  Awww.  What a cute boy.  Not even one mention of presents or Santa.

Hey!  Look who's holding a BABY!!

Aunt Jeanne!  Who was a little bit sad that she held a baby for like three minutes, and then she went to the hospital.  No worries, Aunt Jeanne.  I don't think we can blame you for breaking the baby.

Trying to get a picture with the pretty sunset clouds

Here's how Erin rode around the Christmas tree farm

They had some cool new stuff to play with this year.

King of the straw bales

How tall are we this year?  Here's the link to last year's post with a similar picture.  Scroll way way down.  And realize that, holy crap, this child got huge in a year.

Even though he's big, he still likes riding on Daddy's back.

Checking to see how fat the tree is.

Getting ready to tag our tree

Here it is!  We'll bring it home in a couple weeks.

Dex would not look at Aunt Jeanne for a photo

That was a lot of walking around looking for a tree.  Somebody needs a ride home.

Cute elf

Plenty of time was spent playing with this cool Eddie Excavator

The baby pretty much did this all day long.