We had a lot of fun things going on this month! Thank goodness Spring has finally arrived!
Every year, Norman hosts a Medieval Fair in the beginning of April. It's nothing like the Renaissance festivals in Texas, but for a weekend gig, it's pretty great. We try to go every year, but just when I thought I was beginning to lose my interest in the fair, this guy changed my outlook:
Bruce has really enjoyed watching the Mickey Mouse Musketeers movie lately, so when I asked him if he wanted to dress up like a Musketeer for the festival, he thought that was a great idea! It's times like these that I love having closets filled floor to ceiling with tubs of odds and ends of arts and crafts supplies. While Bruce took a nap, I made him a felt tunic and Charlie made him a cardboard sword. (A parenting tactic we've been waiting to use for awhile - make a sword before you go so you don't have to buy one when you get there). Bruce was so excited about his costume that he asked to wear it for the next few days - great success!
Not to be left out, I made Abby a costume too. Since I was planning on keeping her in the carrier, I just made little felt fairies and hot-glued them to her socks. She wiggles her legs constantly, so the yarn tassels looked adorable! (Watch those fairies fly!) Man, we've got some cute kids!
It was a wonderful afternoon at the fair! We met some pirates, saw the camels and elephants, ate some fair food, and closed out the afternoon with some dancing to bagpipes. (Watch that Little Fella do his jig!)
We've had a lot of warmer weather this month, so we've started going on walks again. We used to just walk to the Sonic or gas station, but we've discovered that the local library is within walking distance also, so now that's a favorite destination. Bruce still has some trouble focusing for Story Time there, but always loves reading books with us at home. He's becoming friends with Ms. Maureen and Mr. Mark, the librarians, which is nice to see, and I get a kick out of the other kids flocking over when Bruce picks out a book for me to read with him. Satisfaction for my teacher-heart. We cycle through books pretty frequently, but some of his favorites this month have been from the Maisy Mouse series. You can look at some of the other books we've enjoyed this month on our storybook blog.
Like our Pumpkin Carving Party, our "annual" Easter Egg Coloring Party was also just a party of four this year. Having two kids makes organizing big events challenging! We still had a good time though, and hopefully next year we can have friends join us again! All of our chickens are regularly laying eggs these days, so we had about four dozen to dye. Bruce did a great job coloring them this year! We ended up with a lot of green eggs though because that was the color cup closest to him.
For the Easter weekend we made a quick trip to the Kansas farm for the Kolarik family reunion. All of Charlie's aunts and uncles were able to come, along with most of the cousins and just about all of the grand kids. We had a weenie-roast by Bluff Creek, hunted for Easter eggs, and tried to catch up with family members as best as we could between taking care of our kiddos. Uncle Bruce quickly became (our ) Bruce's best friend after he let him "drive" the big excavator, and I even caught Charlie's brother Willie talking to Abby a couple of times when no one was looking. Whirlwind of a weekend, but it was great seeing everyone.
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| with Uncle Bruce |
in lieu of baskets this year, we just got them giant eggs...
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| jam session with Uncle Willie |
I spent a lot of my "free time" in the evenings this month working on a painting for a friend's nursery - it was nice to carve out some time to relax and be enthusiastic about a hobby again. We have three families in our house church group having babies this month, so working on the painting has also been a fun way for me to celebrate in this season of new little lives! Charlie, always needing multiple projects to work on depending on his mood, started renovating our master bathroom this month, but has also been spending a lot of time working on our lawn and garden, and fixing up his Firebird. He hasn't driven it hardly at all in the past two years, so the plan initially was to fix it up so we could sell it. All this work I think has rekindled his (and Bruce's) interest in the car though, so we'll probably end up keeping it around for awhile longer.
We planted some spring veggies, but this cold weather has prevented us from getting much of anything growing. We'll plant our main seedlings next weekend and hopefully have better luck with them!
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| playing next to the "lettuce patch" |
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| the tractor pull at the Farmer's Market |
The bathroom renovation was temporarily put on hold because...
The two neighborhood tramp cats, Mark and Princess, are raising their seven kittens in the shower. We're pretty fond of these cats, and thought Bruce would love seeing the kittens. So, we're letting them live with us for now, and then will find homes for the kittens after they've been weaned. It's been fun having all these cuddle-buddies around. Bruce has named one kitten, "Ham" and another, "Sandwich." The three orange ones are all named "Mack Truck" and then there's "Porcupine." The pretty calico one he named "Princess" after one of the mamas. We didn't watch the births, so we don't know which kittens belong to which cat, and they don't seem to know either. They seem to have a Boston Marriage of sorts though, are sharing nicely, and both mothering all of them. I look at them and think it would be nice if humans had a baby-sharing set up like that, but I think I would die if I had to nurse seven babies at once...
Abby had her six month check up towards the beginning of the month. She's developing right on track, and they're not worried about her weight anymore. She's currently in the 12th percentile for weight at nearly 15 pounds, and the 76th percentile for length at just about 27 inches.
The biggest news was that because she's growing well, I was given "permission" to stop feeding her at night - hooray! Since she was still eating two times at night, I slowly weaned her over a couple of weeks, and she's doing great. She's still waking up some and crying a bit, but is putting herself back to sleep with not too much difficulty. The downside to no night feeds? She's now waking up at 6:00 am instead of 6:30. It's crazy how 30 minutes really does make such a difference when it comes to dragging myself out of bed in the mornings. Oh well. I'm thankful Bruce and Abby are both on a similar sleep schedule at least. And kid-free evenings are pretty wonderful.
Other news on the Abby-front? She can now pivot in different directions when she's on her belly, so she can face any direction she chooses. She can also wiggle/rock side to side a little to get a toy that's just out of reach. She can push her whole chest off the floor, and is working on how to pull her legs under her, but I doubt crawling is coming anytime soon. She can almost sit up by herself, which has been really exciting (and helpful)! She's also found her feet, and while she doesn't chew on them too much, she does enjoy grabbing them. She can be awfully cranky when it's time to eat, but doesn't show any specific aversions to or preferences for certain flavors of baby food. She loves toys and what-nots, but gets bored pretty easily and needs to have things changed up frequently. She's now tall enough to reach the floor on her "exersaucer" and has been enjoying playing in that some, too. She always brightens up when we go outside, or when I let her drink from my cup, or when she gets to bury her toes in cat fur or sand. Just recently I think I've maybe seen her start to dance to music. Maybe that's just wishful thinking. She loves being rough-housed with, and especially loves hanging upside down. Her favorite thing to do though, is to watch whatever her brother is doing. Well, maybe her favorite thing is to grab and pull things. She's got sneaky hands and a darn good grip.
And what can you find that big brother doing? He still loves his tractor toys but lately enjoys playing with his monster trucks more. It's nice living in Oklahoma because you can find "monster trucks" driving around just about anywhere you go. We also left him a corner in the garden to be his dirt pile, and now that the weather is getting nicer he loves using a variety of tools and trucks to get "work" done. He's almost always in overalls, and always "in character" still.
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| with his new "Arthur" shoes |
Our neighborhood had "Big Trash Day" recently, and Bruce scored several new toys from the scavenger hunt, including a child-sized convertible car and 4-wheeler. The motors don't work anymore, but Bruce enjoys playing with them nevertheless.
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| surveying the loot |
Interests at the forefront this month include bugs and pirates and bad guys. Sometimes I start to worry that he's a little too fascinated with bad guys, but I guess that's just part of life. Kids have been playing cops & robbers and cowboys & Indians for decades, right? I think Bruce is starting to grasp the concept of good verses evil, exploring motivations and morals, and trying make sense of it all - as best as a two and a half year old can.
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| Bruce found a ladybug! |
Our main challenge with Bruce these days has been with "hitting," We've muddled through trying to figure out how to deal with this for awhile now, but have had to become a lot more firm lately. Nothing about parenting is black & white, and this is no exception! He doesn't hit out of anger, and very rarely hits out of frustration. I think it's mostly just an impulse that he doesn't have control over yet. He's so energetic, and I think because there are so many games that involve a form of hitting, not to mention good ol' fashion rough-housing, it's hard for him to distinguish healthy physical play from hurtful hitting. Regardless of how "age appropriate" it is though, he's been hitting other kids on a much more frequent basis now, so it's something we're trying to work on with him. All in all, he's still a great kid, and these Terrible Twos aren't so terrible.
