Teeth.

Timothy's got his first two teeth now! I think they did the final pushing through last night. He kept waking up, his cry was different, and usually he only wakes up to nurse but last night he woke up and that didn't settle him. It's funny, Leanna and Justin never minded their teeth coming in at all. Maybe it was having two come in at the same time that hurt him more.

(yes, I know every child is different and it can bother some children tremendously)

from the Awwwww files

I told Justin today that he looked cute in his hat. He patted his head, smiled, and said, "Like Daddy!"

Name fun

This is fun, look up your name to see how popular it's been over time. I'm happy to say that "Leanna" 's rank in 2004 was 765. At the height of it's popularity it was only at number513 in the 1990s. I wanted her to have a name that wasn't common, yet not so unusual that it would be a liability. Justin and Timothy's names are a lot more common, but I have more trouble with boy names. They just aren't as much fun. (Justin's was pretty much picked out for us, as that was the name of the brother I never had, or was) I just liked the name Timothy.
Lorelei is still barely cracking the top 1000, which is good. I'm still hoping to have my Lorelei one day!

Leanna's dream

Leanna dreamed that we were outside-me, her, and Maree. We were waving to the clowns that live on the roof across the street. The wife clown started throwing little pickles at us and we had to duck down. Then she started throwing big pickles at us and we really had to duck down! So then we went in the house and the wife clown's pickles broke our house. Then we saw there was a flood. So we had to get the clowns down. We had to get a ladder. Then Daddy came home and got the ladder with Leanna. He had to hold the ladder so Leanna could climb it. The clown started coming down. Leanna started to fall and Mommy yelled to Maree to come it was an
emergency! And it was so Maree came and caught Leanna. And then we all went in the house, the clown too. And Mommy and Daddy took care of the broken ladder. How the flood started was from a drip in the sink, so Leanna and the clown fixed that.

I think that's where the real dream ended, she keeps adding more to the story now-but it seems to be just wishful thinking. Stuff about how Justin and Timothy were born the next day and grew up and Maree helped her fix our house, etc. etc.

nice day for us

I just finshed painting Justin and Leanna's nails. It's kid nail polish, practically water. So it doesn't really show. I couldn't leave Justin out-he wanted his done too! (It'll wear off by tomorrow anyway). Timothy's napping and the house is pretty quiet. It was actually a very nice holiday. Since my Mom's heart attack she has completely turned her diet around. Her influence has been trickling down to those around her. I never thought I'd see the day when my Dad would like to eat salads or yogurt or smoothies! I mention this because we now have a lot more healthy foods to munch on at these family gatherings. Which is nice. We still had old standbyes like chips and brownies. But we had peppers and carrots and cucumbers too. And Justin tried and liked Kumquats(I think I spelled that right). They taste sort of like a combination of orange and lemons. You need water nearby when you try them. He also ate some dehydrated onions! He has interesting tastes.
But aside from that it was just nice to spend time talking to family. I didn't have to go anywhere and I didn't have to worry as much about cleaning up as usual, because the only one there who doesn't see our house in it's natural state was Uncle David. So I just figured, aww, screw it! We also had Tom home all day which is rare. Leanna especially enjoyed herself today, and that makes me happy too. I think we'll all sleep good tonight.

By the way,

There are always people who are quick to call you selfish for having more than one, or possibly two children. I like this guy's response:

Rich said...
To start with, I have 6 kids, which I guess makes me triply selfish. Or maybe I just looked at US birthrates and realized that we are reproducing at a rate barely above self sustaining. Maybe I learned that the only reason US population is increasing is the combined effects of immigration and longer life expectancies. Maybe I also realized that the birth rates in India and China mean that my contribution to global population, or Anonymous's refusal to contribute is ultimately meaningless. In fact, maybe I knew enough math to realize that global population growth is driven by China, India, and third world nations, not the US.Or maybe my decision to have a large family came from a desire to improve the gene pool by outbreeding ignorant and obnoxious folks who think it seems selfish to have a large family.

I've read about that. In the US & Europe we aren't having enough babies to replace the workforce. People think that overpopulation is a problem here, but it's not.

An article about bigger families

Here's an article in the Boston Globe about a new trend towards having bigger families. Since none of you will read it, it mainly talks about wealthy families having more kids
1. because they can afford to 2. because others in their community are 3. because after you have a few, you're already "in the groove"4. because women are delaying having families, so a.they often need the help of fertility drugs which can cause multiple babies and b. after a miscarrige or several, once they do have a sucessful pregnancy, children become such a gift to them that they want as many as they can have. 5. "It's so expensive having two kids, how much worse can it be with three?" 6. Some of these couples find that of all the luxuries their bank balances allow them, they get no greater satisfaction than from their kids, so they decide to have more.
A few sections I found interesting:

Traditionally, the third child has been a major barrier to both parents working full time, considering that the combined day-care costs can eat up an entire salary. So three kids are more common in families in which one parent -- usually the mother -- is at home full time or has flexible part-time work. For all the talk in recent years of women "opting out" of careers to stay at home, half of all mothers still return to the workforce before their child's first birthday, says Kathleen Gerson, a sociology professor at New York University and board member of the Council on Contemporary Families. Not that there aren't lots of stay-at-home moms. It's just that they're mostly clustered at the top and bottom of the income scale. The poorer moms' job opportunities are so bleak that many don't feel they are giving up much to stay home. Many of the more affluent moms started out with the expectation that they could have it all, managing a successful career with one or two kids. But after experiencing the all-too-common work-family bind, they can walk away from the job without bringing financial pain to their families. ......I still marvel at my parents' ability to raise a big, close-knit family with aplomb. But they would be the first to admit that it was easier to swing back in the 1960s and '70s, when parents had more control over what their kids were exposed to and fewer demands to ferry them individually from one scheduled activity to another. When my two brothers, two sisters, and I weren't in school, we were out "playing," an all-encompassing category in those blissful pre-play-date days that consisted of packs of kids roaming the neighborhood for most of the day until the dinner bells started ringing or, in the case of our less inhibited neighbors, the fathers started bellowing for their kids to get their butts home. As a family, we didn't travel far, but when we did, it was pretty easy to get going. There were no five-point harness car seats to contend with. All seven of my family members could quickly pile into our 1964 Ford Falcon sedan that was built for five. My assigned seat? Lying along the back window ledge, next to the tissue box......We probably could have been just as happy -- and less sleepy -- if we'd stopped after one or two children. And by now there's ample research to rebut all those old myths about only children being misfits. But we just love the vibe you get in a house with lots of kids. As crazy as the switch from man-to-man to zone defense can be, there's not much we find as satisfying as catching a glimpse of all three girls sharing with one another, unprompted by us. Or seeing the entirely different routes they each take to make us laugh. We like the idea of our daughters learning, early on, how to work things out with one another, and being able, later on, to lean on one another. With more kids, the lessons usually start sooner. Staffers at the Wellesley Nursery School in the Hills say the most consistently polite kids to have gone through the school are the eight in Owen's family

Almost eight months old!

Timothy's got his first tooth just starting to push through on the bottom! He occasionally crawls forward a bit, but mainly he likes to try to stand. He pushes himself up on whatever he can find. Leanna was like that too-never really did much crawling. He's growing so fast! Tom's already making comments about "the next one."

Something accomplished!

I finally made the curtains for our back porch room's big windows! They match the ones in the bathroom. If I'm lucky Tom will put them up tomorrow! I just have to do the back-door yet, and then people won't be able to see in at night! Well, daytime too. Maybe someone will bring a camera tomorrow and I can post a picture here.

animals

We have an ongoing science experiment at our house-the tadpoles on our back porch have grown legs and arms(or is it just front and back legs? Whatever.) Tom had to clear out some of the water because once they change to frogs they need air, unfortunately, he accidentally lost one of the tadpoles down the drain Saturday night. He was trying to drain some of the water, but the tadpole went with it! He told Leanna that it went to the ocean. So she pestered him with all kinds of questions, like who would feed the frog at the ocean. She was genuinely worried for it's safety. Tom was annoyed with all her questions, but I thought it was really sweet that she was so concerned. Then tonight he had to drain more water from the container because two more frogs died. We think they drowned. So hopefully we'll manage to save the last two.
It's pretty neat that the kids get to watch the animals grow like that. We also have a bird sitting on her nest out in the roof of our backyard. We watched the Daddy bird bringing little twigs and stuff over to build the nest. Every day Justin goes out back to yell "Hi bird!" and "Hi Tadpoles!"

Doggies are cool

Recently I've begun to differentiate between the two Pop-Pops by explaining which grandmother they live with and sometimes using last names. Justin is still fascinated with doggies, and apparently that's what sticks in his memory about his paternal grandparents. The other night Justin started talking about Pop-Pop Cody.
For the record-he's not calling you a dog, Pop-Pop, he's merely associating you with the doggies. : )

Not a tupperware ninja.......

It's funny, now when my Mom mentions that Claire is at Sam's (Sam is her new boyfriend) I always think she means Sam's Club at first. It could be worse though, she could be dating an Ollie.
(For those who don't know, we call the store Naked Ollie's).

Unique insults

Overheard today:

"Justin! You tadpole hitter!"

vacuum again

I found the toy vacuum cleaner full of assorted batteries. Apparently Justin had dropped a bunch inside the part where the bag sits. (Since it wasn't working, and he found a stash of batteries, he thought maybe he could fix the problem!)

differences

Being a pseudo-step-parent is hard. And for me it's only every other weekend. Except during soccer season, which we generally skip altogether now. I'm having a lot of frustration on that front. It's such a common thing today to have blended families, it's not like I'm doing anything exceptional. But it really is tough, it'd be a lot easier to raise another person's child full-time than to do it this way. This way you constantly have to worry about possible repercussions of every action(Is her mother going to get upset that I don't let her watch her music videos around here? I didn't let her eat the yogurt because it has to last my kids all week long-will she tell her Mom that I don't let her eat our food?) I have to second-guess every decision. Was I being fair(make sure I don't side only with my own kids, or only with her. Which is made more difficult by their age difference) ? It's mainly this past year that the problems have really been surfacing. I guess as a result of Maree doing some growing up. It doesn't help that her mother and I have very different child-rearing philosophies. Her mother thinks you should let the child confront all life's nasty realities up front(for example, she takes Maree to see the junkie laying on the street corner to tell her this is not what you want for yourself). I think the longer you stay a kid, the happier you are. (I would never go out of my way to take her to see something like that. If the issue comes up on its own, fine, we deal with it. But I think kids are happier ignorant of things like that, until life presents the issue.) This makes it hard to discuss with her why I think it's inappropriate for my kids to be learning to sing and dance to "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me." It's not that I want to change how she raises her daughter. I'm just afraid of it's consequences on my children.

Age

Last night Leanna was trying to put a scrunchie in my hair. She informed me that she needed to get the right size for me, and that I needed a 40-50. "You're 57, right?"
(Hmmmm.....maybe it's time to do something about that grey streak of hair?)

Are You Poisoning Your Child With a Lead-Tainted Soft Plastic Vinyl Lunchbox?

"At issue are lunchboxes made from soft vinyl, an increasingly popular choice with manufacturers because of their ability to insulate foods and absorb all kinds of punishment on those rugged journeys to and from school........ researchers found that the lead contaminating the lunchboxes was not bound up in the vinyl material itself, but rather was simply resting on its surface where it could easily transfer to hands or food that touched it. Even more disturbing, in most cases the highest levels of lead detected were found not on the outside of the lunchboxes, but on the inner lining, the surface with which food is much more likely to have contact. Researchers believe the lead is added to the vinyl either as a stabilizer or as part of its pigment."

They say to either use old fashioned metal lunch boxes, cloth bags or paper bags. Or go buy a lead test kit from a hardware store.

RIP, even though you were a terrible place to work

RIP, ShopRite of city that can't be named on a blog. ....................................................................
This one would have to have been taken not long before ShopRite closed for good. Leanna claims she can still remember this work uniform, but I doubt it. Leanna's just learned to walk here, you can tell she's still wobbly.

Not all that long ago.........

Can you believe I'm three months pregnant with Leanna in this picture?

I'm sad now.

This one's easier, I think........