RAINY DAY ACTIVITY

When it's cold and rainy, and daddy can't take you to the playground, the next best thing is a warm bath with colored shaving cream to paint with.

Am I right?

Pretty sure they had an awesome afternoon!

Photos by Jay

18-MONTH CHECK-UP

Cora finally had her 18-month wellness exam today, and there isn't much to report. She's hitting all her milestones on or ahead of target. She screamed like a banshee the ENTIRE time the doctor was touching her (after the doc had JUST discussed with me that we should let her cry at night, proving even to old school Doc Smith that Cora is not a force to be reckoned with!) Then she yelled again when she got her Hep-A vaccine. And while she was weighed and measured. Her face was SO red by the time we left... Her diaper rash is finally healing (we hope for good!), hence the plastic diaper. Yup, she has a crunchy butt. We used them in Cali when my order of FLIP disposable inserts got lost in shipment, and we've decided to keep up with them for a while longer, until her rash is 100% healed and we no longer need to use creams on her. (Yes, they're a brand with fewer chemicals and whatnot, Seventh Generation. It's the best we could do.) In a side note, I also ordered new (different scent) cloth diaper laundry detergent, since we're worried the "Sweet Clementine" was bothering her ULTRA sensitive skin (since that is one thing we can point to as changing around the time that the rash first appeared), and threw out all of our BumGenius Elementals. And I didn't shed a tear. It sucks to lose that money we invested, but they had become so worn out (holes along the edges, an unfortunate result of using organic fabric - natural fibers don't hold up as well as the manmade ones do) that we couldn't have resold them anyway. And we'll still have saved over $1500 by using cloth instead of disposables over the past 2 years, so we're happy. Plus, we're getting close enough to potty training Cora that I'm starting to thin her stash (selling off her fitted diapers), so we'll just use her pocket diapers (she has PLENTY) until she's trained. Oh, and finally, in surprising news, Cora's weight (23.2 lbs), height (32.25"), and head circumference (46 cm) are ALL up, with her head circumference increasing to the 50th percentile to join her weight and height. She still seems tiny to us, but I guess Baby Doll is catching up with her peers!

NOTE: when measuring her at home against her new growth chart, she is not even close to 32.25", so we're pretty sure the nurse measured her wrong. She was right at 31" for us...

CORA'S 18-MONTH PORTRAITS

Portraits by Jay

LONG LOST BUDDIES

James hasn't seen Gabriel (his old buddy from PCDC) in so long that I can't remember for sure. October maybe? And it's been a while since we've seen the Kennedy's too. AND it's Will's 2nd birthday today! So we "hit the road" (a new phrase James picked up from his Grambot and Pawpaw while we were in Cali) to Catfish Row park this afternoon and let the kids run out their energy. The boys pushed around big trucks and carted them all over the playground and down the slides, and Cora did her best to keep up (she's yelling "Wait!" in the picture below, one of her more commonly used words lately). The kids had fun, and we really enjoyed catching up with Michelle & Lucas, and Al & Christina. Not to mention, it was about 70 degrees today. In JANUARY. That alone is a great excuse to get out of the house to play!

SLEEP DRAMA RETURNS

Now, we're not pointing any fingers (literally, anyway), but as awesome as our holiday vacation was, the aftermath has been equally UNawesome. If that's a word. Between the travel and busy days and departure from schedules (and spoiling), we somehow (not surprisingly) lost our newfound sleeping star in Cora. She is back to waking up multiple times per night (sometimes staying awake for hours at a time). Once up, she refuses to go back to sleep in her crib, so she's been sleeping with Daddy and/or Mama, and sometimes James.

We sincerely hope that this sleep drama will end soon (10 days of vacation to break her STTN pattern, 10 days back home before she starts STTN again?...), because we sure liked getting to sleep together, alone, in our own bed, for the past couple months. Cross your fingers for us. And please send any extra sleepy dust you have laying around your house over to ours. Express mail.

THE BEST FROM GRAMBOT

Here are a few more photos from our trip to Cali, courtesy of Grambot.

Our family photo session was hard work. The kids were obviously parched afterward.

James actually liked giving Eli hugs (normally he refuses hugs from other toddlers/preschoolers, even though he loves to be held and cuddled by any adult - he's never met a stranger, as they say):

Mama got a workout pushing both her kiddos around the block (you can see what a big helper Cora was...):

Davey and I with Addy and James at Oak Grove Park:

Eli catches some air at the Children's Museum:

Pawpaw and his Lindsay grandkids:

A better photo of Cora and I with her Great Grandma:

Group shot at the Sac Zoo:

All aboard the Sac Zoo choo-choo:

PORTRAITS, DECEMBER 2011

Here are my favorites, thanks to Laura Tavarez Photography

WHATCHU TALKIN' 'BOUT?

Riding in her Beco Gemini on my belly, and keeping her hands warm in the most convenient place:

SACRAMENTO ZOO

For our last day in Cali, we decided to take the kids to the zoo. It was so much smaller than we all remembered, but there was a TRAIN and Merry-Go-Round, and the kids had a lot of fun.

Pawpaw got to carry Addy around on his back for a while (SO cute!):

Cora rode on Daddy's shoulders:

All 4 kiddos liked the train, even Addy!

James and Eli were in separate cars, but that didn't stop them from talking to each other the whole time!

At first, James didn't want to ride anything on the carousel other than the bench, but right before it started he decided that the ladybug would be safe...

Any successful trip is marked by naps on the way home, and our kids slept, slept, and slept some more. It was kinda crazy. And we totally took advantage of Cora, taking goofy photos of her. The dolphin was for her Uncle Jamie.

(Who says kids can't comfortably rear-face until they're 3 or 4? No matter how James splays or folds his legs, he is ALWAYS more comfortable than with his legs dangling. We know, because he hated it on the airplane, when he was forward-facing. And he is so much safer this way! And while I'm on my soapbox, please remember folks: the chest strap goes at the chest, from armpit-to-armpit, not at the belly or anywhere in between. Without the harness tightly secured up high, with the upper straps over the shoulders and not off to the sides, your little one will pop right out in a crash. Car seats, whether rear-facing or forward-facing, are only as safe as the caretakers who place the child in them make them, so please be careful with your kiddos!)

Still sleeping...

LAZY DAY

If I haven't mentioned it here yet, Cora can climb ladders. Really well. Better than a lot of 2.5-year-olds, even. She throws people off because she can do and say so many things that bigger kids do, yet she's only 18-months. And she can honestly pass for 12-15 months, since she's so short (and bald). We don't know whether it's her natural ability (this physical stuff, not the talking - we know that's a combo of many things, including genetics, her natural ability, having a big brother to talk to, the things she's learned at school/daycare, and our tendency to just simply talk to and with our kids from the start, like they're little people, not babies), or that we've just given her far more freedom than James had at this age (since we're no longer paranoid first time parents, we tend to let Cora attempt MANY more things than we ever did with James - it seems these days, once he figures something out, Cora is not far behind - monkey see, monkey do), but she's still impressing us and throwing us for a loop at every turn of the game. She's a problem solver. A critical thinker. An independent girl, for sure. She's 18-months going on 18...

I forgot to get a photo with Nicole the other day, so here we go! She is 15-weeks with baby #2 - a girl!

The kids decided to tackle Jay. And Jagger knew some wrestling moves...

It sure was a cute little toddler-friendly playground!