Spring break fun

A couple weeks ago, I asked Evelyn to think of something fun to do during spring break. She told me she wanted to go to a farm. So, I packed 2 kids + 2 carseats into one of the teeny tiny zipcars in our building and drove out to the Queens County Farm Museum (30 minutes packing before leaving apartment + 20 minutes between leaving apartment and driving out). It was a little disappointing. The best part was watching Evelyn try to interest the chickens, piglets, and cows in the books and toys she insisted on bringing to show them.

Then, less than an hour after I dragged both kids + carseats + toys + stroller + $25 of groceries from Costco back to my apartment, Hyrum had a seizure. Fun, huh? We made an emergency call to his pediatrician, dropped everything to go in for an office visit (superfun since at this point he had missed both the day's naps), and came home mostly relieved. In sum, this seems to be a "wait and see" type thing. His pediatrician and the neurologist to which she referred us agree it was probably just a febrile seizure, which approximately four percent of children experience between six months and five years, which has no long-term effects, and which is not a cause for concern. So, now we hope we wait a long time and see nothing.

Luckily, these were the low points of Spring Vacation, which also included the following:

A one-week visit from Charles, during which I took absolutely no pictures of him with the kids

A visit to the New York City Police Museum, with Charles and without Hyrum (way cooler than the Queens County Farm Museum)

An "Emma through the years" celebration planned and executed by John (with all my favorite foods from the many decades of my life + dorky pictures to accompany them), at which I took one picture

A visit to Laurel in Boston, including:

$1 night at the Boston Children's Museum (coolest ever)

Delicious albeit messy fondue

And many viewings of Tangled + Beauty and the Beast

Aside: I might mention that Boston seems like a fun place to live with kids. A little less expensive, a little more space, good restaurants (Elephant Walk is a particular favorite), fun things to do, walkable but you can still have a car, and it has a well-stocked and friendly (unlike NYC) stroller store. My name is Emma, and yes, I am obsessed with strollers. Hopefully I can find a 12-step program in about 8-10 more years.

As you can see, we had an awesome spring break, despite the fact that we didn't go to Florida and no one got drunk or did anything else they will later be ashamed to have their children find floating around the internet.

Some new experiences are better than others

Dear Hyrum,

You're welcome.

Love,
Mommy

P.S. Sorry about the whole letting-them-put-electrodes-all-over-your-head thing from yesterday.

Quote of the day

"Hyrum, drink your water. Water is healthy for your body. That's what Heavenly Father told us."



Sometimes it's hard to be the baby.

A post only a grandparent could love

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Watching video of other people's kids is usually boring. This is particularly true of babies, who don't yet say funny things but simply do things all the rest of us have been able to do ever since before we can remember. Youtube hits of babies laughing uncontrollably when paper tears can be, I admit, addictive and are the exception that proves the rule.

That said, as a daughter who lives far from her parents, I feel a responsibility to record and share the significant first-year milestones, and so I'm pleased to report on a few of Hyrum's new tricks.

First, I have to say that catching him in the act of any of these accomplishments is a little bit like glimpsing the Loch Ness monster. They say all babies are different, and they are right! Evelyn wanted to show off the minute she figured out something new. Hyrum likes to practice when he thinks you're not looking, wait until you least expect it, catch your gaze from across the room after checking to make sure you're not near a camera, lock eyes with you, and then very slowly and deliberately execute his new moves. He did it with babbling. Then, last week, he randomly started waving at me (more of a hand raise and thumb wave, but I knew what he meant). Once he saw that I had processed and understood what he was doing, he would stop.

Yesterday at the park, I noticed him clapping in the stroller while he thought I was chatting with my friends. I finally tricked him into letting me get it on film today only by turning the video on and off so many times that he lost track. Score one for mom! I can still pull one over on my almost-ten-month-old!

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, Hyrum has perfected his dinner self-feeding abilities. He's spent the last week out eating his sister at dinner almost every night and is in that lovely pre-toddler phase of being not at all picky. Spaghetti with mushrooms? Inhaled.

Corned beef and cabbage? Decimated.

Finally, and most excitingly, Houston, we have mobility. Of a sort.

(Tuesday, March 16, 2011 - 9 months and 26 days)

Our attempts to transition this activity to carpet met with resistance (literally, from friction) too great to overcome.

In order to celebrate all these milestones, I took myself to a movie yesterday without my children. Notice the late morning start time, the coordinating $6 ticket price, and the fact that it is not an animated feature. All of which combine to make another kind of milestone.

* * *

Final Edit: While I was writing this post, Hyrum rolled, for the first time, from back to front. Four to six months late, but I'll take it. Go Hyrum!

Shoes

With spring tantalizingly around the corner, we've been reintroducing ourselves to things like the playground (hello, swingset, nice to meet you). This has led to some disagreements between Evelyn and me on footwear choices.

When she decided to only wear dresses all winter (thereby making 90+% of her wardrobe unacceptable), she also gave up sneakers. She wears mary janes everywhere. Black patent mary janes for church, navy psuedosuede mary janes for school, $12 silver Target mary janes for everything else. Unfortunately, the Target shoes weren't up to the challenge of a full season's wear. When Evelyn tripped three times in one block the other day, I investigated and discovered that one of the soles had started to rip off.

I ordered her new shoes, but I foolishly ordered them a size up from what she had been wearing, thinking surely her feet would have grown in the six months since I last ordered shoes for her. Not so much. So, we had to order another pair.

In the intervening days of waiting, I have relegated Evelyn to sneakers for one or two outings. My decision has not been well-received. Our first battle was Friday: "But they don't match! There's no white in my outfit!" None of her outfits include silver, but for some reason she never lodged the "don't match" complaint with those shoes. When we finally got out of the house, I considered texting a couple of the friends we were meeting and asking them to comment favorably on Evelyn's sneakers in the hopes it would smooth our next encounter. Typing one-handed with the Ergo on front while pushing the Maclaren isn't my favorite, though, so I didn't.

Saturday, the scene repeated itself. I insisted on sneakers instead of church shoes with jeans. "Remember how warm and comfortable your sneakers were at the park yesterday," I cajoled. "You ran around everywhere and didn't trip at all! Sneakers are great for climbing."

After a few more comments like this, the problem became clear. "But nobody even said they were cute when they saw them!" she protested.

What's not to like?

Apparently, quite a bit. Luckily, the new shoes should arrive tomorrow. 

Do you want to be my friend?

Every year, our ward gets younger. Fresh-faced couples move in, full of hope and promise, without their protective city shells on yet. In a way, it's nice. Easy to make friends, in theory, since half the ward doesn't know anyone. At least, it's easy to make friends until you start collecting children.

With one baby, you can still be semi-cool. If you're willing to throw bedtime and naptime and every other time in your child's schedule to the wind on occasion, you can still lunch and dinner and party with all the childless couples. One baby is cute. Newlyweds like one baby.

With a toddler, it's a little more difficult. A tired baby can nap in a carrier or in your arms. A tired toddler will run around destroying everything in her path. Relief society meetings with Evelyn up past her bedtime? Great! Usually there's a nursery. Anything else? Not so much, especially when we were living in Washington Heights and it took us an hour to get home after the night ended for everyone else. During the eight months we were there, half our ward moved out, more than half moved in, and I got to know precisely none of them.

Then, we moved back. Unfortunately, we also had a second child. One cute baby = semi-cool. One cute baby + one cute toddler = no longer cool at all, no way, no how, don't even try. And understandably so.

I have this theory that as I grow older, I grow more empathetic because I have walked in more people's shoes. An example: Before we got married, I always hated it when my friends got married and ditched all their single friends. Then, I got married and realized that street went both ways. I felt like all my single friends ditched me and thought I had probably done the same in the past. Before I had a baby, I thought all those people who couldn't bear to be out past 7:00 were insane. It's a baby, not a bomb. Babies sleep anywhere, right? Then, I had a baby. Before I had two kids . . . . You get the drift.

Maybe I'm just getting more pathetic. After all, spending four months nursing in corners followed by five months walking the halls with a crying, tired baby, and then another nine months trying to control a mobile child (in theory, since Hyrum still shows no signs of going anywhere) doesn't encourage meaningful get-to-know-you conversations at Sunday services. People in the ward used to recognize my face because I taught Sunday school. Now, they recognize me as the woman who came in and out of Sunday school five times last week.

As my group of peers still making it work in the Big Apple diminishes every year, I start to wonder if I will really be able to recreate a support group each fall. The other day, I wrote out a list of my eight closest NYC friends. I've known two of them less than a year. One is moving soon.  Of the remaining five, certainly none are as committed to this place as we are. At least three could go at any time, and then what would I do?

So, my message to all the women in my ward who are younger than me, thinner than me, and who have fewer children than I do is this: I want to be your friend. I just don't know how. So, when I awkwardly ask you to Sunday night dinner at church on Sunday morning or make some other half-ditched, poorly planned attempt to get to know you, if you can, be kind. It's me not you; I would be cooler if I weren't so old.

Too good natured for his own good

Hyrum had his 9-month well check yesterday. He is 19 pounds, 6 ounces, and 27.75 inches, or 35-40th percentile in both height and weight.

He is very social.

He sits like a champ, stands relatively well, and does not crawl. Or scoot. Or roll from back to front.

Some kids go straight to walking, a few friends have suggested.

I doubt that will be the case here.

He's just too happy, I told the pediatrician, when she told me to sit him in a wide straddle, then place something just out of his reach to try to encourage productive movement. ("Something he actually wants," she said, "like your blackberry or the remote.") He'll look at it, make one swipe, realize he can't reach it, then play with something else for 30 minutes. No other toys or electronics in his sphere of influence? No problem. He can contentedly while away some time pushing around lint on the rug. Which is developing his fine motor skills, right? So I probably shouldn't vacuum my floors too often?

I guess if he never "amounts to much" it will be my fault for not figuring out how to instill in him the angst that pushes us to achieve. But he'll be so happy that he won't care and so cute that I won't either. "Do you have any idea how cute your kids are, objectively?" the pediatrician asked yesterday. "I mean, you're their mom, so maybe you think you're biased. But really. Have 10 more just like him."

Speaking of fine motor skills, he can empty a tray full of puffs as fast as any 9-month-old I've seen.

Now that I think about it, he's going to be just fine.