Month: December 2014

Ruby girl is 11 months old!

This sweet and loving baby just makes us happy.

Ruby is TEETHING. One of her top teeth is most of the way out, and the other one is trying it’s darndest to cut through. Must be really uncomfortable for the little gal. Her naps have been crazy tough and we are in the midst of figuring that out. Ruby was on such a great nap schedule and then all of the sudden she wasn’t napping well/fighting the nap despite our continued consistency. Maybe it’s a developmental phase, or maybe it’s the teething? Or both. Or neither. We are experimenting with her nap times. I’ve pushed her naps later as I can’t imagine she is any way ready to condense to one nap. It’s a bit soon for that. She doesn’t seem overtired, but who knows. She is still going down early for bed, around 6:30/45pm and then generally wakes around 7/7:30am. She is up several times to nurse during the night, as well. I’d like that to be less, to be honest, but I do love snuggling with her in those quiet, dark hours and I miss her when I don’t. But I would like some non-fragmented sleep.

Ruby is cruising really well along furniture and is all over the place exploring. She plays well with toys independently and lights up when we pull out puffs for her to snack on. Girl likes her puffs. One new thing she does that is very silly and cute is to lean back onto pillows on the bed over and over and pull herself back up and laugh. It’s too cute.

She is happy and eating well. Jay recently fed her chicken sausage even, which she promptly gobbled up. We have starting giving her a wee bit of cow’s milk and she seems to like it just fine. She doesn’t drink anything with vigor, except for nursing, but she seems to be doing just dandy.

Ruby is babbling words and sort of does a call and response thing that is pretty entertaining. We can tell she is listening and beginning to grasp language much more. She can respond to simple directions and I can tell when she understands what I’m asking, or telling her.

How is it already New Year’s with a one-year old birthday just around the bend?

Theo has been making up “poems” to share with us. Here’s a gem.

I forgot to mention Theo’s love of games. Since turning 3, it’s been awesome to blossom into a family that plays games together. Last year began Candy Land, Sneaky Snacky Squirrel, Memory, Chutes & Ladders, Old Maid and, of course, Snap Circuits. We recently started playing Crazy 8’s and Uno, and we got Go Fish! for Theo for Chanukah and it’s been a huge hit.

It turns out Theo is quite the competitor. It’s been a challenge because he does NOT like losing. He must get that from Jay because I’m all let’s just have fun and play! Theo can get really upset when he loses. So we are trying to navigate this situation. I’m all for supporting the fact that it’s good to be the best, and he should always want to try his hardest and to get ahead. However, I’m not a competitive person by nature and I don’t fully get it. I want to also teach the mantra, “it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game”. Mostly because I want to teach fairness, first and foremost. Cheaters never win. We are always talking about winning “fair and square”. Just another balancing act in this parenting trip we are on.

Theo, the 4-year old, is going strong in life. He is a non-stop ball of energy and will only slow down and sit for TV. Thank goodness for this option because honestly I don’t know how any of us would survive 😉

Theo has been taking ice skating lessons on Saturday mornings. Jay takes him, but he is 100% with the teacher and other kids. Theo has been hesitant to try some of the techniques on his own. He wants more help from the teacher, i.e. holding her hand, etc. The last class he had a breakthrough and learned to “march” on the ice all by himself. The teacher said he did excellent and Theo was very proud to come home and tell me this news. We will see if he wants to continue with lessons. Soccer could resume on the weekends, come spring, so we’ll see what he chooses. He is also considering swimming classes again in the spring so he is ready for next summer. He really doesn’t want to go under the water, and he hasn’t learned to doggy paddle. I think he will have so much more fun in the summer if he can swim!

Karate seems to be his true love at the moment. Which leads me to report that his Sensei just up and retired with zero notice last week. It was an email… “I’m retiring and leaving NYC effective TODAY”. WTF? It was sad. Theo was able to go in (along with a ton of other kids and parents) to give her a hug and say goodbye over the weekend. Now we are locating another option. He has really enjoyed it, and is always excited to get to class. He isn’t always 100% focused, and can certainly goof around more than other kids, but when he’s on, he’s on. He recites the Dojo Creed and it’s all quite impressive.

School is going well. He is able to write almost all the letters and he is very interested in reading. He can’t read, yet, but he wants us to show him words more closely now and he is starting to sound words out with us. One of his favorite things to do is to write in notebooks. He has a couple notebooks that are his and you can see him often sitting and either doodling, writing his name, or just writing letters. This activity, and painting or writing with markers on his easel, are some of the times I see him quietly engaged.

Theo is still very into electricity, planets, how things work, robotic stuff, building stuff. Definitely looking into two summer camps to foster these interests. One is “Construction Kids!” and looks completely awesome. The other is “Brooklyn Robot Foundry”, which is also completely awesome. Hoping to take a weekend class at Brooklyn Robot Foundry in the new year to finally check it out.

I still would never describe him as a rambunctious, typical “boy”, but he has boundless energy and needs constant activity. If I’m unable to give him individual attention for an activity, then he can get restless. I allow him certain times to watch a show and I wouldn’t survive otherwise. He gets a show in the AM, sometimes only when I put Ruby down for her nap around 9am. He gets to watch another show after school, typically, and then when I put Ruby down for bed around 6ish. TV is the pretty much the only area where we can take privileges away from him when we need a consequence for an unsavory behavior. So, we do have days where there is no TV. And we do survive.

Theo is really excited about calendars. As I’ve mentioned he has complete comprehension of the days of the week, and gets the concept of time in relation to weeks. He knows all of the months now, too, so he has a calendar and loves to look through it and talk about the months. We are currently counting down the days until Christmas, so each day we see the date and count how many more days. We are going to hang his own calendar in his room for the new year.

The holidays are great this year, too. He has so many questions about Chanukah and Christmas and he is lucky to get to celebrate both! He can’t wait to light the candles each night, and can’t wait to bake cookies for Santa.

Theo often wants to “throw Ruby in the garbage” or “throw Ruby in the sewer”, or my personal favorite, “put Ruby back in your pagina”. I’m still looking forward to turning a corner with their sibling love once she can play and interact with him more. The other day we had a moment that gave me hope. We were on the bed and Theo said, “put Ruby on me”. They snuggled and he really, really hugged her. They got up and he hugged her again and said, “I like Ruby a little bit”.

Theo drew our family at school. I love it.

Theo and Ruby met Santa on Wednesday. My heart just about exploded when they snuggled up close for a photo. Nobody was sad, nobody was afraid.

Theo got some solo time with Santa first.

And Theo asked Santa for “a special surprise” this year.

We decided to brave “Macy’s Santaland”, and I’m glad we did. Jay has been off work this week, so I thought it would be a good idea to hit it early on a weekday, earlyish in the month, to avoid full-on craziness. We seriously lucked out. We waited 15 minutes and it was really enjoyable. We got to see some of the window displays outside, also crowd-free, which were pretty cool and Theo enjoyed them.

Theo delivered his usual letter-to-Santa in the red mailbox at Macy’s, too. A tradition I really love.

This year Theo even wrote, “For Santa” on the envelope all by himself! Well, I helped a little with the S and the n 😉 it was very sweet.

Our tree was bought, dragged home a few blocks in the rain by Jay (last year I remembered Jay and Papa Hankie lugging it home in a snowstorm), and decorated by all of us last weekend. Theo had fun picking it out.

It feels good to be ahead of the game for once. We even have most of our presents purchased and wrapped. That is huge for us!

We are in the Christmas spirit over here. And don’t worry, Hanukkah begins next week so we are excited to celebrate that, too! There will be no shortage of menorah lighting, gift opening and latke eating.