Chow Time

Ronnie’s eating patterns changed somewhat over the last few days. She’s been waking up earlier and earlier at night and eating nearly constantly for those few hours she’s in bed with me. So we decided to try cereal last night. She seemed to really like it! Obviously she has to learn to swallow the different consistency but she didn’t get mad like Kirk did on his first go. Maybe that’s because we’ve got some experience in the matter and maybe it’s just because she’s proving to be an all-around easier baby than he was. I did feel a slight twinge of “my baby is growing up” melancholy but only slight.



Awesomely, I managed to get a dinty conversation in this video. Kirk loves pizza but won’t eat the dinties. That’s the toppings. I don’t have a clue where he came up with that word but we’ve been using it for several years now so it’s just part of the family vocabulary.

Veronica's Post

Ronnie had her 4 month check up yesterday. Nothing exciting to report, which is as it should be. She’s getting huge, now weighing 14 pounds 1 ounce (65%) and is a tall girl at 25 and a half inches (90%). All physical development is on track and we can start her in on cereal in the next few weeks or so.

She’s starting to hold on to toys so I added some plastic links to her carseat.



She brings toys up to her mouth but doesn’t necessarily chew on them yet.



She continues to be a drool machine however. Doc said no teeth are immanent.



For some reason, I can’t get her to smile on camera. She has the most beautiful smile. Such an enormous, genuine grin. My dad was tickling her and I ran to get the camera, but once she saw me with it she went back into serious mode.



She’s got some awesome clothes. I love these legwarmers.

Kirk's Post

Naturally Mr. b let Kirk open one of his presents from us a couple days early.



They spent quite a lot of time putting together “the courthouse what’s on fire” and playing with all the other Cars.



The main attraction, however, was saved for Kirk’s actual birthday: the drum set!



We had it set up in the basement and brought him downstairs, unawares.



Kirk requested that it be moved into his bedroom, understanding that meant the vast majority of his toys had to go downstairs. Now he and his daddy have band practice.

Role Playing

Kirk likes to act out movies and TV shows. Sometimes he’ll play the roles, like when he’s the Doctor, and sometimes he’ll use props, like his millions of Cars vehicles. If he doesn’t have any proper merch then he’ll use whatever he can find. He managed to gather together stand-ins for all the characters from the Brave Little Toaster, and plays with them in the kitchen because that’s where the toaster is.



Most frequently he’ll want to play musicians. This has been going on for a good couple of years now. He used to wear a gaudy plastic ring so he could be Ringo Starr. He used to wear a crapped out cowboy hat so he could be Dave Gahan. He’s got his own kid-sized guitar and sings along to videos and has great rock stance. But he always comes back to the drummers. He always wants to know who the drummer is when he’s introduced to a new band. He always wants to be able to see the drummer whether we’re watching American Idol or the Rolling Stone’s Rock n Roll Circus.

Since his only drums are a plastic baby toy set he got for like his first birthday (shhhh, we’re pricing out proper mini-kits), he likes to use anything and everything available. I’m not sure if the old diaper genie was promoted to drum status or if that’s a demotion since it was previously playing the role of a Dalek…



Poor Ringo has most definitely lost out on Favorite Drummer status. That honor now belongs to Nick Mason of Pink Floyd. Kirk’s fascination with volcanoes gets to crossover with his rock knowledge thanks to Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii. He loves watching Roger Waters slowly walk over to the gong during the prog madness. And he quite literally plays Saucerful of Secrets: The Game. He’s Nick of course. He’ll even make Mr. b sit down on the ground and use a busted off piece of lightsaber as a slide to properly portray David Gilmore.

Bathing Beauty

I have never given my daughter a bath. I'm not sure how it's ended up that way but there you go. They've all been administered by her daddy. In fact, Ronnie has graduated from the sink to the bathtub and I still haven't bathed her myself.

What's On My Mind

Ronnie continues to be a champ at nursing. The only position we don't seem to have mastered is laying down in bed; it's good enough that I can catch an hour of sleep before returning her to her bassinet if I'm desperate. She does, however, go through these periods of feeding frenzy every few days where she's chomping at my nipples and demanding boob like every 30 minutes. Usually in the evenings. When I get to the point where I can't take her squirming anymore then I pass her on to her dad. Mr. b has been working on bottle training her. It's slow going but he reminded me that it was hard work with Kirk, too. And she's obviously got to learn.

I'm still not getting much via pumping but I guess I don't care. We can have Ronnie on formula at daycare and I'll continue to pump when I go back to work and that's what we'll have for everything in between.

Kirk continues to be absolutely smitten with his sister. He takes his big brother duties very seriously. If I ask him to watch her for a minute, he'll literally watch her. He loves announcing that she "wants boobie" when she starts to fuss. He's very patient and understanding about the fact that she doesn't do anything yet. He talks about how she's growing and will learn things. It's darling and sweet.

I think we've finally discovered his reversion though. Kirk wants to sleep in our bed a lot again. It's been quite some time since he's done that. If Mr. b happens to be crashed on the couch or downstairs I don't mind because there's enough room, even if Ronnie is next to me instead of in her bundle bin. But all four of us gets crowded! Last night Kirk just brought himself to our bed; I have a vague memory of him showing up and Mr. b just woke up and he was there. The problem was that Kirk apparently thought that if I was awake at 4 am nursing his sister then he could be up and jumping around and telling stories. His father got him put back into his own bed after that.

I took the bundle in for the obligatory visit at work yesterday. I can't believe my leave is already half over.

I'm so ready to start the allowed-to-have-sex-again countdown.

I think I've already lost the miniscule amount of baby weight I gained this time. My pants all fit already. And I haven't even started exercising yet. I plan to start that next week. I can feel the laziness in my muscles. Or at least, I can feel it during those rare moments when I'm well rested. I'm eating like a maniac, however, so I think milk production must be helping. The lactation nurse at the hospital said you need an extra 300 calories a day when you're pregnant but an extra 500 when you're nursing. Damn. I can tell.

I need to investigate the rules for drinking. I've heard that beer can help with milk let down and I'm presuming that means one drink in general and not beer specifically. I figure one drink won't affect the milk. Mr. b has bought me a couple of those flavored Smirnoff thingies and I haven't been able to finish one the two times I've had one. (Of course he bought me tall boys both times and then got to finish them himself so there may have been an ulterior motive there.) I know the phrase "pump and dump" but I don't know the details. At what point does the alcohol hit the milk ducts? Is the milk that's in there when you start drinking fine? What if you can't drain it all or how can you tell it's safe again?

There's a subtle difference to how I view us as a unit now that we have two kids. Before we were a couple that had a son. Now we're a family.

Movie Star

Mr. b got busy with the iMovie last night and created this awesome look back at Kirk's two-and-a-half years so far. Kirkie loves watching videos of himself and sometimes asks to see specific ones. So he adored this one. When I left for the bus stop this morning they were already on their third viewing. "That's me! I'm messy. I'm a bald baby. Look, I'm a big boy! I have hair."

Video Rage

Mercurial Rage has a video for one of the songs off their new CD, The Funeral Sessions! Check out Mr. b's mutton chops.



I'm wearing a fur coat.