Oh, and potentially complicating some of his symptoms, his second tooth did pop through last week, on Feb. 24. He's got such a cute little grin right now! I can't use my fingers to massage his gums anymore - they're sharp and he has a strong jaw!

Here's another situation that doesn't cease to make us giggle, courtesy of Natalie's imagination. She often plays up here next to me when I'm on the computer. Currently (and for the last few weeks) we've had an extra, unplugged fax machine sitting on the floor (ready to be stored away in our basement but just hasn't made it there yet). She plays with the phone headset on the machine, 'calling' all her friends and having lots of conversations. She pulled the plastic paper-holder tray off the back of the machine, and for the last week has been carrying it around, even wrapping it up in a kitchen towel (a 'blanket'), and she hasn't been often without it. She calls it "Backpack", from Dora. A square of fax machine plastic.  Yesterday following dinner, after she'd been excused but we were still finishing up, she came back to the table as she often does, and brought "Backpack" with her. At some point, the plastic got pushed off the table and Natalie said "uh oh! Backpack fell down!" After picking it back up, she re-wrapped the plastic lovingly in the kitchen towel and said, "She has a boo-boo on her cheek." This morning, for a good 20 minutes after waking up, she whispered everything she said, because "Backpack's still sleeping." Who needs toys when you have a scrap of plastic and kitchen towels to tote around?

One other Natalie note today. After three years of trying to get her to attach to some blanket or toy instead of just needing us to fall asleep, Natalie has her comfort object, and once again, like daddy like daughter. It's her pillowcase. (That was Phil's security object, too, which I didn't realize when we first got married and I threw away the "old ratty pillowcase" since we had new wedding gift sheets!) When she moved into her big-kid bed back in June, the sheets she picked for the bed look like a pink playhouse, and the pillowcase is reversible, with one side being asleep faces and the other side smiling, awake faces. She calls the pillowcase "my smiles". The other day I made the mistake of taking her sheets off to wash them, and she threw a FIT. And then I had the nerve to forget to get it into the dryer in time for use that night...

February 25, 2005  
We're now on day 3 of antibiotics. I haven't noticed too much change yet, but hopefully within the next couple days there will be improvement. Well, maybe it has been a little better today -- we haven't needed a clothing change for both of us yet. Yesterday we both went through several outfits, because he coughs so hard that everything comes up. Today the worst incident happened while he was in his high chair for a feeble attempt at getting some solid food into him. The tray caught most of it instead of my lap, which was a plus. It's so hard to see him so sick, and knowing there's just no way to explain to him that he won't cough that hard forever! He sits up and plays, and giggles, here and there, but then he starts coughing again and just melts into my arms, crying. Lots of times after a coughing fit, he actually makes a sound that sounds just like "owwww". Poor little guy.

I love it when Natalie entertains him; she gets him laughing and it's so cute. Until he then lunges toward her and grabs a fistful of hair -- Natalie doesn't like that any more than I do! The boy just loves to grab hair. He's doing very good with sitting, by the way. The better to grab everything in sight now! Including the remote control and all food. The other day I was holding Ethan (of course; he doesn't want to be put down too much) while I buttered and toasted some cinnamon bread. Then I brought it to the living room, where I put Ethan down on the floor and then sat down next to him to eat it, and share it with Natalie. It was really funny: he looked at the toast, looked at me, looked back to the toast, and then back up at me with the saddest little pathetic look, and he started a "hey! where's mine??" cry, watching every movement I or Natalie made with the toast. I think he thought that since he 'helped' me the whole time I was preparing it that it was for him. If you can't handle Zwieback, sugar pie, I don't think you're ready for cinnamon toast yet.

About a week ago (while we were still out going places), we were rounding the corner to our house and Natalie said "I like my house!"  I asked her which one was ours (as condos they all look nearly the same) and she pointed right to our garage. She said, "That one. It's a BIG house, Mama. I like my house." It just got me thinking, once again, how I've learned so much about God through my kids. I never really understood much about the love of God until I was a parent and saw that complete unconditional love as a mom, even when they anger me and disobey. I was thinking, this time, about how we dream about what kind of house (how big, extravagant, etc.),  we will get in heaven, as a reward for what we do during our lives. (The Bible says that salvation is a free gift when we accept Jesus as our savior, not based upon what we do, but that there will be levels of rewards in heaven based on what we do.) When my dad died, I remember thinking that I was pretty sure he made it to heaven, but I didn't know what kind of reward he would get. When Natalie said she liked our house, that it was SO big,  it made me chuckle because my house is anything BUT that, but in Natalie's eyes it is a mansion, a perfect house for her. It may not be the best house in the neighborhood, but it doesn't matter to her, she was just happy to be home in the house that she loved.  So I don't need to worry about what kind of house God will give me when I get to heaven. In my eyes, it will be the perfect house for me.

How could I possibly learn lessons like this if I didn't have my kids?

February 23, 2005  
Three years ago today was Natalie's due date.  This date is still just stuck in my mind.

Anyway, this will be a very short update, because it's past Natalie's bedtime and we're trying to keep her somewhat on schedule. (Hard for Wednesday nights.) 

We've had an interesting few days. A couple days ago, Ethan started choking on Zwieback. He started turning dark red/blue and couldn't quite get a cough going, until Daddy finger-swept his mouth (we've since learned you shouldn't do that at Ethan's age) and managed to get a big chunk out of his throat, along with a little trickle of blood from somewhere. Then he started crying, and choking/coughing, so we knew everything was okay. It was scary, though. No more Zwieback for him for awhile. He seems to do okay on fruit wheels but we're watching that a little closer now too. Natalie never seemed to have an issue with food; she didn't jaw off big hunks of it like Ethan does.

So then the last few days, totally unrelated to the above coughing incident, Ethan's been having a really yucky cough, getting worse by day, and he never did quite get over the last "cold" that I took him to the doctor about. (The one I felt in my gut was more than just a run of the mill cold.) Well, my mama feelings were right. The poor boy has pneumonia. His cough just sounds so bad. He coughs every time he eats or nurses, and sometimes coughs so hard that he throws up. Dr. Kern put him on an antibiotic, so hopefully Ethan will get to feeling better soon. This is his first real illness, though. He just wants to be held continuously, which is very unlike him!

And along with the pain of illness, Tooth #2 is coming in. Fun!

February 21, 2005  
Cute cute cute. Ethan and Daddy were playing last night. (Click on this; it's just a thumbnail.)

I am quite positive that this is my shortest journal entry ever.

February 18, 2005  
There was one thing in our eventful week that I did forget about last time. Natalie got her tooth fixed on Monday -- the cavity on her front tooth that we found last month.  She also had her first dental exam, x-rays, and cleaning, so hopefully we can avoid any more of these unpleasant surprises in her otherwise very pretty little smile. 

Speaking of her smile, you can't ask her to smile these days, when attempting to take her picture. When we tell her to smile, she forces a fake smile and closes her eyes all the way.  Real cute. So instead, we say something like, "say 'stinky boogers', Natalie".  That usually gets her laughing.

About a month ago, I forecasted that Natalie would be spelling her first word very soon, and I even predicted what that word would be. I was right. On Wednesday night on the way home from church, we were listening to one of many Wiggles CDs we get from the library, and she sang right along to: "D-O-R-O-T-H-Y, Dorothy the Dinosaur..." So she's now spelled her first word. Sort of.

One more first to note today: Ethan sat by himself yesterday afternoon for several minutes! Now he's not very content to stay in any one place. Today I was at COSI, and I just sat Ethan down in his stroller seat while I got his coat out to put back on. Within seconds he was trying to lurch out of the stroller, and he would have been successful if I hadn't been just a few inches away and I was able to catch him. Mental note -- he's much more wiggly than Natalie; stroller seatbelts are no longer optional!!!

February 16, 2005  
I have gotten way too far behind. The past week and a half have been eventful. I was going to write yesterday, but it was much too beautiful outside to stay in and write what is sure to be a long entry. Yesterday it was 64 and sunny! We went to a park and walked for about an hour - much needed exercise. Okay, so where do I start? I guess let's go chronologically.

The 9th was Natalie's 3rd birthday. I just can't believe that my little girl is three. (That was always my favorite age to baby-sit. I'm trying to keep that little tidbit in mind these days - "it's a fun age, it's a fun age...") I am very glad to be moving into her fourth year. Last year was full of so many challenges, that I'm not particularly sad to see it go, except that another year means my baby is getting older faster than I can blink. Actually, the year was overall very good, with Natalie learning so much. We just had lots of adjustments this year, so it was full of "learning experiences" for all of us. She is just so very smart these days. (Of course I've been saying that since she was an infant.)  The other day, we were in the car and she had been drinking a glass bottle of lemonade. When she said she was done, I reached back to get it from her, and asked her where the lid was. She responded, "In your hand, Mama." She was right; about 10 minutes before, I had taken the lid from her and put it next to me in the console. 

On her actual birthday day, Wednesday, we let her open up presents from us - her Wiggles guitar (loved it of course) and some new construction paper and some watercolor paints. I took her to get her hair cut at Snip Buzz Bangs, then we went right from there to get her photo taken. (We did it at Wal-Mart. They will be in on March 3.) We got through only one picture when she decided she was done and started throwing a fit. Fortunately that one shot was good. They even got her face turned some to the side, hiding a big scratch on her cheek that I'd accidentally given her that morning, trying to fight with her to get her pajama top off. (We really were trying to make the whole day very fun and peaceful - it was the only argument of the day, actually. But then I had to hear her tell people "Mama hurt me" like she had been saying about the boo-boo Daddy had given her the week before, from getting her finger caught under the TV.)

That afternoon, Grammy came over and brought her a new Thomas the Train set, this time including Thomas. (She'd been saying "I don't have Thomas", very forlornly, since Christmas.) Mom and I made a point of telling her how big girls, three year olds, went poopy in the potty and not their panties. Something we'd all said before, but this time something clicked. The next day, she told me, around lunchtime as usual, "my 'borna' (bottom) hurts". I told her, as usual, that her bottom hurting meant she had some poop that needed to come out, so we rushed over to the potty. Then, success!! She's now been going since Thursday, whenever she feels the need to go. So, it took about two weeks total, from going pee all the time in the potty, to being completely potty trained. 

Speaking of her way of saying bottom ("borna"), guess what the opposite of "new" is? No, not "old", as you might have heard. It's "broken". Think about it and it does make some sense.

So back to my chronology. Wednesday night we had church, so Natalie brought mini-cupcakes to share at her Rainbows class. On Thursday, we had both kids' checkups at Dr. Kern's office. Natalie is now 31 1/2 pounds, and 38 inches. Or so we think. She's now decided that she doesn't like cooperating with the weight and height measurement procedures, so we had to weigh her by me picking her up and holding her on the scale and then subtracting my weight; then we had to measure her by laying her down, screaming, on the doctor's table, like a baby, instead of using the height chart on the wall.  Saying she didn't cooperate is an understatement; she screamed like we were pinching her, and refused to put any weight on the scale and either bent her legs and sunk to the ground, or spread her legs out wide, when trying to measure her against the wall. So, assuming the stats we got are actually correct, she's right at 50th percentile for both -- looks like she finally caught up with her size; no more off the charts. But that's typical for breast-fed kids -- they measure off the (formula-fed baby) charts while babies, then slim down considerably to how they will be in childhood. Which brings us to Ethan's stats: he's a BIG boy. Natalie was big and roly-poly, but Ethan is just very big and solid. His weight is now 21 pounds 3 ounces (95th %), length is 28 inches (90th %), and his head circumference is 18.5 inches (97th %). He's already outgrowing some 12 month clothing, which is sad because most of the really cute and easy-wearing baby clothes (i.e., footed sleepers) stop at size 9 months. I remember this with Natalie, too. From now on I've got to fight with separates -- pants that must come fully off for diaper changes, t-shirts that won't stay down over his back and belly, and socks that don't stay on no matter how much that brand claims they will. I think this was about the time Natalie started wearing shoes -- just to keep her socks from falling off. It doesn't take much to knock his socks off these days. Ha ha ha.

So, then Saturday was Natalie's birthday party. Her Wiggles party. Here are the cakes I made for the party:

One was white, one was chocolate, as per Natalie's request. It took most of Friday to make and decorate them.

I am so glad we decided to have the party at my mom's house instead of mine. We had a houseful. In addition to our family, and a couple friends of the family, which would have more than filled my house alone, we had five of Natalie's friends, plus parents and two little siblings. 28 people, total, and that was just with family plus the friends Natalie named! (So, if you didn't get an invitation, please don't feel too bad; you just missed a lot of chaos, really.) It was a very successful party, and Natalie had lots of fun. We had, in addition to cake, pizza from Papa Murphy's, chips and snacks, and "fruit salad, yummy yummy." (That's a Wiggles song, for those yet uninitiated.) Of course all the kids wanted to "help" Natalie open her presents, but we managed to keep them at least a few inches away, and Natalie opened a bunch of nice presents. Halfway through, she was holding her bottom and doing the pee-pee dance, insisting that she didn't have to go, so Aunt Nanny swooped in and took her potty, all of us ourselves insisting that the party would wait for her!

Here are a couple pictures from her party. If they look a little, ahem, "soft-focus", it's because they are. I think someone, in the course of the party, stuck their finger right on the lens, because all but the first few photos from her party have a blurry spot right in the middle. Doh! (I discovered this on Sunday when taking Ethan's six-month photo.)

Here is Ethan, with Megan, who was the two year old flower girl in our wedding. Ethan really took to Megan, giving her lots of kisses! He really took to Megan's mom, too. Ethan fell asleep in her arms and stayed there for a blessed couple hours!!

We all were really exhausted on Saturday evening, but it was a good time.

Sunday was Ethan's six month birthday! (I knew this would be a long journal entry!) I won't wax nostalgic like I did when Natalie turned 6 months, because the biggest deal then was the fact that WE made it six months, but I do want to write a little about what he's doing these days. He now rolls all over the floor so fast that for the first time in this house, we've got to keep the basement door shut. He is just too fast sometimes; this is a taste of things to come, I'm sure. We don't often even bother trying to keep him on a play mat anymore, because he's rolled off of it as soon as we put him down. (Good thing Mom got us that steam cleaner for Christmas!) We need to think about getting the baby proofing stuff out again, like the fireplace bumper pad. He's already had a few near-misses with that.  He's not fully sitting by himself yet, like Natalie as at 6 months, but he has always had a bigger head to contend with, too. (Natalie was holding her head up at birth, Ethan just started to about a week or two before rolling over.) He can sit with support, though, so he's now being fed in the highchair, and YAY, we moved him to a convertible car seat instead of lugging around the baby seat anymore. (Which means, however, that now the concern has been finding a place to put him when we're out, since he doesn't sit fully yet, and if we lay him down he WON'T stay in one place.) Ethan is now eating lots of different baby foods (can't really call those "solids") and he wants to eat even more. He wants grown-up food badly, you can tell. We're giving him Zwieback and Fruit Wheels, which he loves and mushes down really quickly. Going out to restaurants is much more difficult these days than it was with Little Bean. I don't know if it's just having two kids to deal with, or if it's because he's so wiggly and grabby for everything, but I suspect it's all of the above. It's pretty stressful to attempt eating out these days. The last thing I wanted to note about him at 6 months, is that he is getting VERY talkative. He's saying lots of syllable combinations these days, including da, ma, and ba, and saying them really loudly and with conviction! Mom and I decided he's going to be a politician -- he has a lot to say, says it loud and like he means it, but you can't understand a word he is saying. I've posted his 6 month picture here.

February 7, 2005  
Ethan got his first tooth today! Yesterday I thought I felt a little bump, and he was really chomping down on my finger. (As a related aside, last Friday Ethan was nursing, when suddenly he got that little twinkle in his eye and then bit down. I said sharply "No! Don't bite!" -- and then it was the cutest, most pathetic face he's ever made -- his little bottom lip actually trembled! "I was just playing, Mom" was what he seemed to be saying.) Anyway, so this morning Ethan was munching on my finger as usual, and I felt that familiar little sharp edge, where once was pink smoothness. Ethan didn't like me trying to pry open his mouth so I could have a look, but once I got him to open up (fuss fuss fuss) I saw the top point of a tooth!  It's the lower front, just like Natalie, the right side tooth. It's exciting for his first tooth to be here, but knowing the "fun" looming ahead for the next year, it's a happiness a little muted by experience!

This Wednesday my little baby girl is turning three! How is this possible? We're making all of the preparations for her party, which is going to be on Saturday. I'm still trying to decide how much we will celebrate on Wednesday, because she knows that this year, Birthday = The Wiggles, so I don't want her to get upset on Wednesday when she hasn't had her Wiggles party. This year will really be the first time her birthday is more about her and her friends instead of us and our friends and family. Up until this year, though last year somewhat less than her first birthday, it felt more like a milestone celebration of how far we'd all come. It's still that, too, but mostly this year feels like we're celebrating Natalie -- as it should be, I guess! We're making a location change, too, to my mom's house, because we decided that our little living room will just be too crowded for all the family AND Natalie's friends, their siblings, and parents. Plus, I don't know where everyone would park!

Three years ago today I was calling in to my office from the hospital, letting them know that I wouldn't be back in that day!