We have to go back

In what can only be deemed "inconceivable", I will actually see 3 movies this week. In the theater. I know, hold onto your hat. Since I'd been averaging one per year since Miles was born, this is truly an amazing event. What makes the list? But of course the Sex and the City premier Friday evening, a birthday "bash" for Raven's 30th. And while in Nashville, Elizabeth and I took in Made of Honor, which was very cute & in line with the chick flick genre. And finally for Wayne's birthday we're heading out to see Indy 4.

But tonight we're planted at home, on the edge for the finale of Lost. Dig that crazy show! I made us a new favorite dinner, Chicken with broccoli and garlic sauce, and Miles crawled in bed on his own at 6:50 and hasn't made a peep since. We'll see how it goes...

[Friday morning update] Lost was fantastic, lots of answers, more questions, and 8 months until we get more. Argh! Miles slept until 6:45, he must have been exhausted! The days at YaYa & B's and the 1st day back to school wore him out. He's going three days a week this summer, hope it won't be too much for him. The class changed, with some friends moving on to the 3 year old room, and some younger kids moving into the 2 year old room. He still has the same teacher, but change can be tricky.

Kind of like the change required to share your toys with your baby sister. I've been pulling out old toys and he's glommed onto each one. He even thinks he gets to sit in the Bebe pod. Um, no, you'll get stuck. Crazy kid.

Double trouble

I uploaded these photos over the weekend, but obviously haven't gotten around to posting for a while. We had a sort of rough week last week, bad sleeping from both kiddos. Audrey's back on track, but Miles seems to have decided that it's his duty to wake the rooster, so he starts crowing at 5:30 a.m., with no chance of resting quietly until a decent hour. Several days of that can take a toll on a mama, so I brought them to YaYa & B's for some distraction. Unfortunately for YaYa & B, he's rising at 5 a.m. in central time zone! So we all take naps during the day to recharge.

I'm not sure how this purchase will turn out, but we're a double stroller family now. We like our evening walks, and I like to stroll the mall on rainy days during the week, so it seemed like the best way to keep them both in check. Miles was very excited to sit next to his sister, but hopefully the novelty will wear off and he'll stop reaching over to pet her soon. Probably not.

Front Yard Fridays

Before I get to Friday evening, I have to talk about today. Today we learned that bribery does pay. Sort of. We achieved poopy on the potty!! [The rest of this paragraph will be about poopy, so if you're not inducted into the parenting world and don't understand the necessity of discussing poopy, you have permission to skip forward.] I feel as if I live in the bathroom now, spending literally hours at a time sitting there with Miles. During the week we'd sit for 15-20 minutes, put on a pull-up and he'd go poop in the next 15 minutes somewhere else. So today I decided he couldn't leave the potty until we had poopy. So I {bad mommy alert} held him on the seat when he started getting nervous and tried to leave. Which led to much screaming and crying. But after a looooooooong time, it worked! And then throughout the afternoon he told us a few more times that he had to go, and he did! Yay us! Before we go getting all high and mighty he ran off from his tooth brushing and got us back for a day of great pooping on the potty. Back in the diaper. Oh well. He got his chainsaw earlier and I don't think it would be productive to take it back - yet - so we'll just start fresh tomorrow.

Back to Friday... our great neighbors Beth & Dan started what we hope will be a fun summer tradition: Front Yard Fridays. Basically they invited our entire street and many other families in the neighborhood for an evening social in the front yard. Despite a chilly evening there was a great turn-out and lots of food, drink and fun for all. We met 2 sets of brand new neighbors, one family that had twin girls born just before Audrey. Miles had a big time with all the kids, and chasing another neighbor's cat. Beth got everyone's info and the plan is to rotate homes and have this every 2-3 weeks through the summer.

The most amusing sight of the evening was all the dads sporting their kids around in Baby Bjorns. I think we had three at one time and another dad holding one of the twins. There is a baby boom in our hood - there have been 7 babies born since October within a quarter-mile of our house, and one more is due next month. I'm sure that makes the future babysitters I met happy too - business should be hot. I'm glad there are several babysitters to choose from as well! We'll have to start trying them out, maybe for some good movies coming out soon.

shadrach

Sad news this week... "my" cat Shadrach had to be put to sleep after an onset of cancer. I say "my" cat because although I adopted him in 1995, my mom and Don have been his gracious and loving parents for the last -whew- 10 years!! I think we attempted one time to bring him back to Knoxville and he hid and wasn't seen for their entire visit. He had definitely become accustomed to the new good life! And Wayne's allergies are horrible enough without adding cat dander to the mix.

Shadrach was a sweet cat, very friendly and vocal. We could always hear him when we called home. He did almost get us evicted from the apartment I shared with Erin & Kim in college, but I think he always missed his pal Darby, who Jen adopted at the same time. Miles is now his biggest fan, reminding me at nighttime prayers "we forgot Shadrach!" I think we'll just let it go until we return to visit and see how much explaining is needed then.

The sound of silence

No, you're not crazy. When I sent you to the new blog to hear Miles's favorite Dolly Parton song, you didn't hear it. That's because (as the Nester commented) she'd just taken the music off her site!! Since I know you're dying to know what Miles was jamming to, it was 9-5.

Instead we listened to the Sound of Music soundtrack and Pandora all day yesterday. His favorite was So Long, Farewell (the "cuckoo song"). He enjoyed it so much that he was trying to imitate my goofy choreography - especially the bird flapping to the "I fleet, I float, I fleetly flee I fly" line. So before bed I queued up the movie and we watched the Von Trapp kids say Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu. I wasn't sure how he would feel about puppets, but he enjoyed The Lonely Goatherd too. So now both the kiddos are TSOM fans! Daddy's so excited!

{By the way, if you haven't heard of Pandora, it's fantastic! You name an artist or song that you like and it plays music of similar style. I found some great new artists yesterday just letting it go.}

Was it my singing?

Check out the paws on this kid! If kids are like puppies and grow into their big paws, Miles is gonna be a big boy!! He's on his way to "big boyhood", he earned his first potty-poopy-power tool on Friday. It was sorta a freebie from me since I caught him in the act and rushed him to the potty. He'd pretty much done his business but something did end up in the potty so I figured I'd jump start the process. He was sooooo proud and selected the nail gun from the big pack of tools. Now I've had 24+ hours of ka-CHUNK ka-CHUNK ka-CHUNK as he nails everything in the house. He's already identified the screwdrivers as the next goal, so we'll keep trying. I'm glad it will be a quiet tool!

Wait it's bedtime & he's screaming from be for more water....

Okay, I'm back. No water given, but I did sing some Twinkle Twinkle. He doesn't mind me singing his lullabies, in fact he will request one after the other at nap and bed times. But I know it's not because he loves my voice. While driving around if I start singing along to the music he pipes up "No, mama, don't sing!"
But he does let me play air guitar when we're home. I stumbled upon a new blog with a fun playlist, and we air drummed and guitared to Dolly Parton (the 2nd song on the playlist) for a long time.

But Audrey gets a silly grin when I sing to her, so she must find the comedy in my voice already. While she enjoys the usual Mother Goose fare, she has gotten really excited when I sing Edelweiss and Do-Re-Mi. Gotta love the Von Trapps! So I'm off to download the soundtrack, then go catch another classic that's playing on TV tonight. Must be ready for the latest Adventure in a couple of weeks!

2 months

Our little girl is 2 months old! (and a full 9 weeks today... need to try another shot in the chair). We had her checkup this morning and she's up to 12 pounds and 23 1/4" - 75%ile for both height and weight. She got her vaccinations BAM! BAM! BAM! in the thighs and wasn't very happy about it.

It's so easy to write about the goofy things Miles does, but seems to get repetitive with Audrey's activities: stared into blue eyes; exchanged coos; fed, burped, rocked her; changed poopy diaper. Mix. Repeat. But there are highlights in the routine. She has discovered... her hair. Oh yes, she loves her hair. Always wants to have both hands up there, twisting through the curls. We swaddle her for sleep with both arms tucked in and it's high drama when we have to pull those hands away from the locks. But we will swaddle and keep those arms tucked in tight. I'm convinced that's why she's been sleeping so well. We didn't do it with Miles and by this point we were zombies, still getting up 2-3 times each night. But not our dear Audrey. She's been going 5-7 hours at night. Of course tonight we'll be woken up 4 times because I just wrote that, but we'll survive!!

Miles is coming up with the cutest things lately. The best is how he plays daddy/mommy to his bear. He carries brown bear around and says "This is my baby." And he likes to feed brown bear too, and pulls up his t-shirt to feed him just like mommy feeds Audrey!

Also his wishlist is growing. Every time we pass a lawnmower or piece of heavy machinery he says "I want THAT lawnmower trailer and THAT weedeater and THAT blower and THAT lawnmower." We've told him to save his pennies and maybe one day it can all be his. At least we know what his summer job will probably be in 15 years.