Hooray for two months old! Haley has slept five, six, or seven hours at night all week. She is smiling a lot and is starting to follow things with her eyes and head. Haley had her two month checkup today and she is doing just great. Her pediatrician said that she her skills are right on track for her age but that it is completely normal for her to be a little bit behind due to her early arrival.

Haley is 21 1/4 inches long (25th percentile) and weighs 8 pounds 12 ounces (10th percentile). Her head is a teeny 14 1/4 inches around, keeping her in the third percentile. It just cracks me up that JT’s head has always been so big while Haley’s is so small. Our pediatrician said that by Haley should be “caught up” by six to nine months old, in skill and size… and that she might just be a petite girl!

Haley is a drama queen about shots. This is also starkly different than JT, who took his flu shot in the arm without a blink at the same appointment. Haley, on the other hand, screamed like we’d sawed off a limb. And she only got one shot! The nurse even commented that she had quite the set of lungs. Jim hates that Haley cries and has vowed not to come to any more appointments that involve shots.

I got some smiley pictures to mark her milestone.

There were so many “quotables” today that I had to make a separate posting. I am amazed at how children’s brains work (favorite class in college = child development and psychology). I love that JT can verbalize his thinking so much better now. He makes us laugh! Many times these conversations happen in the car or over a meal, where JT has our undivided attention. Don’t get me started on the importance of meals as a family. Anyway…

In the car, passing a billboard with a picture of a cow on it…

Mom: “Do you see that cow?”
JT: “Yes.”
Mom: “Do you know what comes from cows?”
JT: “Milk. Milk come from cows.”
Mom: “That’s right. Do you know what comes from chickens?”
JT: “No.”
Mom: “Eggs come from chickens.”
JT: “Eggs come from chickens.”
Mom: “Yes. We eat chickens too. We eat chickens and they give us eggs. We eat cows and they give us milk. They are both very useful animals.”
JT: “Eat pigs?”
Mom: “Yes, we eat pigs too.”
JT: “Pig milk?”
Mom: “No, we don’t drink milk from pigs. We only drink milk from cows.”
JT: “Yes pig milk!”
Mom: “No, only baby pigs have pig milk. From the mama pigs.”
JT: “Baby sister have pig milk?”
Mom: “No. Absolutely not.”

In the car, passing another car with a dog riding in the backseat…

JT: “Dog in car!”
Mom: “Oh yeah. That’s an old dog. Does Slider ride in our car?”
JT: “Yes.”
Mom: “No, Slider doesn’t ride in our car, silly.”
JT: “Yes. Slider in back.”
Mom: “Oh, that’s right. Slider rides in the back in the truck. But the car has a trunk.”
JT: “Slider in trunk right now?”
Mom: “No. She’s at home.”

While I’m changing JT’s diaper in the parking lot…

Mom: “Here, lie down in the trunk. It’s all wet and gross in the parking lot.”
JT: “Okay…”
Mom: “Good job.”
JT: “Mom, don’t close trunk please.”
Mom: “I would never!”

Getting in the car after church… one water cup left in the car seat during chuch, the other in the cooler lunch pack…

JT: “Water please.”
Mom: “You have one right here.”
JT: “Other water please.”
Mom: “Seriously? They’re the same. Okay, here, trade me.”
JT: “No, I want two waters.”
Mom: “What do you want with two waters?”
JT: “This one hot.”

You may have seen this one on the “quotable” sidebar…

Mom: “Go ahead and pick out a shirt to wear with these pants.”
JT: “Okay… this one!”
Mom: “Well, that one doesn’t really match.”
JT (very confused): “Blue shirt. Blue pants.”
Mom: “Yeah… okay, go ahead.”

JT has known 1-2-3 for awhile and we’ve been focusing on solidifying 4-5 independently. We’ve also been working on letters, of course, and shapes. He was holding his craft from church on the way home the other night…

Mom: “Do you see your letters? Your name on your craft?”
JT: “Yes. Right there.”
Mom: “Yes. Two letters: J…. T.”
JT: “J… T.”
Mom: “Good job.”
(Driving past the IKON building, JT pointing)
JT: “Hey, four letters right there!”
Dad: “Did he just count those letters on the building?!”
Mom: “I think so.”

And finally… apparently I’ve been focused on 1-5 while JT has been focused on the other half. 🙂 It comes at the end of this Flip Clip.

Thursday was a beautiful day, the lake was calm, and I got to ski. Finally! This was my first ski of 2010, my first ski as a 30-year-old, and my first ski as a mother of two. Pretty big deal. 🙂 Grandma and Grandpa Cole came out in the boat with us for lunch (thank goodness for retired grandparents who can hold children while we ski). We are hoping to get another run in next week, too.

JT showing Haley how to flag

Post-ski lunch in the boat

Waiting on the truck with Grandpa

I am so glad to be back in action. This week I went to my workout group, skiied, and went for a jog. Today I did all of my usual Saturday chores before taking a quick afternoon nap while the kids slept, and I feel great! This might be because little Haley’s tummy finally grew, and she has slept for 6 1/2 hours straight for the last two nights. I am feeling like me again! 🙂

We had a lot of fun hanging out with Grandma Keene for her birthday last night! I made my annual German chocolate cake with coconut pecan frosting. We had a yummy pot roast dinner, courtesy Grandpa Keene, too.

The birthday girl and Haley

JT showing Grandma our card

JT’s new light-up pumpkin from Grandma

Haley started smiling two weeks ago but they are so tough to catch on camera! She is consistently smiley after her 10 AM feeding, so this morning I was ready. I also set the camera on continuous shutter, so I got a bazillion pictures in a row and managed to catch some great grins. It is the best feeling in the world to see her little face beaming up at me. (Well, tied with when JT shouts out, “I LOVE YOU MOM!”) Here are my three favorites…

It came! It rocks! If you want more details, keep reading. If you just want to look at pictures of the kids, scroll on. 🙂

So our new Phil & Teds Explorer stroller came on Monday. We were so excited to put it together and take it for a spin. After months of deliberating and the disappointment of Baby Jogger discontinuing their jump seats, we decided on this one. It is everything I hoped and more! (Special thanks to many of Jim’s aunts, uncles, and cousins who gifted us with a check for over half the cost of the stroller! I ordered it from PishPoshBaby.com – no sales tax or shipping, plus double the manufacturer’s warranty.)

Helping Dad assemble the stroller

We couldn’t quite get the stroller together before afternoon nap so we took it out afterwards. JT, Haley, and I walked to Safeway (1.5 miles round trip) and it was the easiest walk I’ve ever done pushing a stroller. Ever. JT seemed to love it, too.

Here’s what makes it so great… I love that it’s a double inline, meaning I can put two kids in the stroller and it doesn’t suddenly grow to unreasonable sizes. In fact, its footprint doesn’t change at all. It steers and maneuvers really, really well. But get this: it folds with the toddler seat on the front. One handed. And then stands on its own. (If you’re not a mom, you have no idea how cool that is.) It fits on one side of the trunk of my little car, which means I can officially take the stroller and hit Costco, which I couldn’t do before with either of my singles. I can clip in the car seat or lay Haley flat. My diaper bag clips right on. The handle adjusts. The wheel can be swivel or locked. There are two sunshades, one for each kid. Both seats recline. I can release the foot brake with my toe. The list goes on.

We took it to the park today. Let me just say that I can steer it one-handed while talking on the phone over gravel, grass, and wood chips. Beautiful. But enough about my stroller. Here are some pics from today.

Finally willing to go down slides!

Haley in her seat… swaddled and lulled to sleep by the gentle swaying motion.

Crunching leaves

Hide and seek behind the trees

Watching the ducks

Two kids. One diaper bag. One stroller. One very happy Mom!

p.s. I sold both of my other strollers this weekend on CraigsList, so now we’re down to this one and the Maclaren umbrella stroller. Nice!

My kids are blessed with people who like to make them blankets of all types… they each have a big fleece blanket from Aunt Linda (that we use in the boat), a small fleece blanket (that we use in the stroller), a square flannel (that we use in the car), a quilt for decoration in their rooms, a quilt from Sharon (that we use for play mats), and an afghan from Grandma Hall (that we use for sleeping). How nice is that?

But the Sara blanket, which is really a quilt, is special in a different way, because Jim and I each have one too! My Aunt Sara made me a blanket when I was born and I called it my “Sara blanket” as a child. My Sara blanket has been through a lot. I use it when I’m not feeling well or extra tired or just want something cozy for a nap. I took it to college. When I’m sick, my mom (and now Jim) will say, “Do you need your Sara blanket?”

Then we got a quilt from Aunt Sara when we got married. It is a huge queen-size schoolhouse quilt. When Jim was laid up for several weeks after shattered his ACL almost four years ago, he commandeered the quilt and has never given it back. So when he gets sick or hurt and is stuck on the couch (or even when it’s extra cold out and he’s watching football…), he says, “Can I have my Sara blanket?”

JT got an airplane quilt when he was born and he is just now learning what it is… and to ask for it when he’s snuggling on the couch watching Bob or Thomas.

And this week, Haley’s Sara blanket came in the mail. It is soooooo beautiful. It is the perfect shade of pink and it is classic and lovely and flawless. I absolutely love it.

I envision a day when it’s snowy and the kids are home from school and we make hot chocolate and put on a movie and get our Sara blankets. 🙂

Haley’s Aunt Jemima and Puddleduck theme

A compilation of Haley’s seventh week

In the past, we’ve gone to the big Salmon Days festival in Issaquah to watch the salmon spawn. This year, we opted to go to the hatchery on Monday after the festival and were pleasantly surprised to find lots of salmon, lots of FISH volunteers giving talks, and no crowds. (FISH stands for Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery. Duh.)

Watching the fish come upstream from the bridge

Salmon flopping around in the creek bed

Watching through the windows in the fish ladders
Notice the Chinook salmon – top right in the picture

It was at the fish ladder that JT helped explain the life cycle of the salmon to some other children… a grandma-type woman had two little kids with her about JT’s age. She was showing them the salmon at this same window. She was talking about how the salmon come back to their home to lay their eggs. I had been having the same conversation with JT earlier, so he knew how the story ended. He looked straight at her with a dead serious face and, to finish her story, said, “And die.” She looked a little surprised. Both of her kids looked at her to see what she would say and I thought, oh great. But she smiled and said, “That’s right. And then they die.” So at least she wasn’t going to lie to the children about some sort of fish heaven. 🙂

Mom and JT checking out the fry salmon (not the salmon fry…)

Haley enjoying the hatchery

On the way home we met our friends Jen, Asher, and Abby at the park to play before lunch. The sun came out and the boys had a great time. There is a huge field at the park and they ran and ran and ran… nice way to work the wiggles out for nap time!

JT chasing Asher

Sharing a secret?

…and we all fall down!

On the way to the car, Jen pointed out a fuzzy caterpillar and the boys watched it crawl into the rocks. I feel as though we have adequately covered science for the week. 🙂

We just loved watching Alabama roll over Florida in today’s game. Even though no one is here to notice, the whole family wears colors to watch the game. I took a moment to get a big brother/little sister picture before kick-off!