Uber-carnivore

I have screwed this kid up. I tried to raise him vegetarian, but once he made the meat-animal connection, I let him make his own choices about meat eating. His choice was an enthusiastic, "More, please." The result is the worst of both worlds: He can't stand the taste or texture of meat, but he desperately wants to be a meat eater.

Enter processed meat.

This child has a passion for unidentifiable meat products that makes me fear for his future. We never serve them at home, but if you invite Sidamo to a party, you might want to put the Li'l Smokies on a high shelf.

The other day our organic grocery delivery service was having a sale on relatively un-gross bacon, so I thought I'd get some for Sidamo as a treat. We had breakfast for dinner, and he enthusiastically ate all the bacon he was served. And then had seconds and begged for thirds (I drew the line). We didn't realize it, but there was one piece of bacon left when he started his dessert—a chocolate brownie. I was talking to Greg and we didn't notice what was happening until this was already well underway:

A bacon-brownie sandwich.

Please pray for his arteries.

An outsider's perspective

We've just hired a wonderful nanny, Mary Beth. Today is her second day, and I'm enjoying overhearing her and Nora's interactions. As I've noted, Nora sometimes throws people for a loop.

Somehow, Nora got it in her head this morning that she needs to earn $4 to buy a gumdrop, so I gave her some chores to do. She has been chattering about the gumdrop, and the money she's going to earn, as she's doing all this. I just overheard her say (again), "Yeah, and I'm going to earn FOUR DOLLARS! And I will buy a GUMDROP!" Mary Beth said, "You're pretty excited. Do you like gumdrops?" Nora: "No."

Fort Bunk

Over the summer, we did a relatively minor basement renovation to accommodate the baby then known as Filbert. We transformed what was a pass-through/office into a proper bedroom for the big kids, and what was Sidamo's room became the baby's room. It required moving some walls, installing new flooring, adding closets, etc. Oh, and 19 trips to Ikea. I exaggerate, but not by much.

The kids love, love, love their new room. They had both been sharing Nora's old room on the main level, which is now my office, because Sidamo didn't want to be downstairs by himself. We put a lot of effort into making their new room fun, to make up for the fact that it's in the dungeon. One of their favorite features is the bunkbed fort we made for them.

We made the curtains out of plain white sheets, which we tie-dyed. Using about a million rubber bands and as many marbles.

While we were at it, we also dyed their duvet covers and all their stained white shirts.

The kids love the results, as you can see.

Their favorite thing to do is hide in their forts with piles of books and read with the illusion of privacy.

The curtains are attached—Nora's to the bed itself, Sidamo's to the ceiling—using the Kvartal system from Ikea. Total cost for the project was some where in the $60 range.

Like, for instance

This photo from the gathering this summer at the lovely Cathy's house (photo credit: Jayme) pretty much sums Nora up. After eating an entire bowl of watermelon slices that had been put out for a group of a dozen or so adult humans, Nora got to thisclose to finishing the watermelon slice she's holding in this picture before handing it to me, loudly declaring, "Eck, I don't like watermelon."

Hair products used in this photo: dirt, sweat, watermelon juice

Character

Oh Nora. She is, as everyone who meets her points out, quite a character. I do sometimes joke that her incessant, stream-of-consciousness, often nonsensical chatter drives me to drink (umm, it's a joke. really.), but it's such an integral part of her hilarious personality that I wouldn't have it any other way. This girl really and truly is hilarious. I love trying to imagine what she'll be like as a teenager, college student, adult, but it's a little hard to picture. 

Totally easy to picture, though, is what she'll be like as a crazy old lady. Because she kind of is one already. 

Germs

It's mid-February, and I am already so, so very over winter germs. The big kids, being at two different schools, have brought home approximately a kazillion bugs over the past couple of months (none of the nasty stomach stuff, luckily, knock on wood). I don't think there's been a single week since maybe October when we've all been healthy. The baby has been spared so far, but now he's sick too. I don't know if our pediatrician is especially cautious or if this is protocol with young babies, but the after-hours on-call nurse had me bring him into the ER last night because he had a fever of 100.5. He and I were there until 5 a.m., he was diagnosed with a cold, and we were sent home. On the way to the ER my mama instincts were telling me to just turn around and go home, thinking that what he really needed was rest and not tests (ooh, I'm gonna have to write that one down). But I didn't, because of course if something went wrong and I hadn't followed medical advice, I would have felt awful. And better safe than sorry and all that.

But we're both still exhausted, even after getting in a good nap this afternoon. He's doing fine, other than wanting to pummel me with his tiny little fists 10 times a day when I need to do the nasal saline/suction routine. Poor guy. He's sleeping a ton, and of course I just want to sit next to him with a mirror under his nose to make sure he keeps breathing. Mamahood.

Oh, and he pooped on my hand while I was taking his temperature. So yeah, I'm ready for the germs to get on out of here. Anyone else?

He smiles!

I dare you not to eat him.

He gave us his first smile the day after his one-month birthday, but he's still very stingy with them. I finally caught one on camera phone today. How stinking cute is this guy? Ayayay I just can't stand it sometimes.

One month

He celebrated with a raucous all-nighter. It was awesome.

Now, for some random and unrelated observations on Elliott's first month ex utero:

• He's generally a decent sleeper, just as long as he's in full-body contact with me. I realize I'm setting the stage for misery by allowing it, but in the middle of the night there's just about no trade I wouldn't make to just get back to sleep. Try me.
• I should know better than to ever write about a child's sleep habits, because children, even as young as one month, read their moms' blogs and respond by making liars of them.
• Scratch everything I just wrote. He's a terrible sleeper.
• Children don't fall for reverse psychology. I'm screwed. 
• He doesn't look like me or Greg, as far as we can tell. Still, he's pretty cute. 
• When he was first born, I said to Greg, "Weird, he doesn't have any teeth. Do you think we should call a dentist?" Greg said, "I don't know, I guess maybe? I can't remember: How many teeth did Nora have when she was born?" He was serious.
• Nursing has been really, really hard this time around. Another thing I thought would be a breeze with number two, especially since it was so easy with Nora. But it's been painful, and now I have mastitis, which is basically like the flu with the added bonus of boobs that feel like they're about to self-destruct. Fun times. 
• Elliott is a pretty serious little kid. He furrows his brow so intently sometimes that it turns completely white. I'm looking forward to the smiley stage, but enjoying this scornful phase as well.
• Time is passing quickly, as it always does when you're watching your babies grow. It's different this time than last, though. I think with the first I often wanted time to accelerate so we could get through the difficult aspects of whatever phase we were in. With the second, I realized how wasteful it is to wish away even a minute, given how precious each minute is. The passage of time seriously depressed me with Nora. This time around, I'm prematurely nostalgic and look back wistfully on photos from two days ago, but at the same time I know that each of the next stages holds its own beauty. And so I'm slightly more at peace with Elliott's rapid growth. 
• Speaking of rapid growth: He was 8 lbs. 2 oz. when he was born. In the hospital he dropped down to 7 lbs. 9 oz. On day three he was 7 lbs. 15 oz. At one week he was 8 lbs. 14 oz. At two weeks he was 9 lbs. 11 oz. (I realize this is interesting to no one but his parents, but since I have never done a baby book, this is where I record such things.)
• His first month birthday falls on a Friday the 13th. Spooky! Do you think it's too early for his first horror movie marathon? 

The all-nighters are catching up with him.

Sibling love

The big kids' first meeting with their little bro:

All in all, the big ones have adjusted very well to their new sibling. In fact, I think it's brought them closer together, as they're forced to find fun and companionship in each other when mom and dad are busy. Their interest in the baby comes and goes; most mornings Nora comes into our bed to hold the baby for about four seconds, and then she forgets about him for the day. Sidamo is interested in him when he does something interesting, like poop audibly.

We are careful not to let Nora alone with the baby unattended, as her affection can sometimes get a little too, umm, assertive (as we've learned with the chickens). His second night home, Nora asked, "Why does Elliott need to have a sleepover with us?" Greg answered, "Well, he's our baby, so he's going to be having quite a lot of sleepovers with us." She asked, "Why did we need a baby?"

A little later, I saw her walking toward Elliott with a pillow in her outstretched hands: "He's cold, so I'm just going to warm him up."

Yikes.

But fears for Elliott's survival aside, I'd say life is going pretty well so far with three. It has helped that Greg has taken off work, so he has been on big kid duty while I've tended to the baby. The timing is quite lucky, actually: Elliott was born just before the kids' schools closed for two-and-a-half weeks, and I shudder to think what I would have done if I'd been thrown into full-time care of three kids without Greg's (enormous, indescribable, superhuman …) help.

Sidamo's 6th

Here's a very belated happy birthday to my first little man. Sidamo turned 6 a couple day's before the baby was born, and we had a super-fun celebration for him and about a billion of his closest friends at a local sports club.

The day started with pancakes, champagne (a.k.a. apple juice in champagne flutes), and presents.

The themes of the day—sports and Legos—reflect the themes of Sidamo's life right now. Every minute of every day, it seems, is spent doing Legos, playing sports, or talking about Legos, sports, and the intersection of the two. He likes to play football, by himself and without a football, on the rug in our living room. Here's what it looks like: He throws himself to the ground, tackled by some phantom linebacker, and then asks for help dissecting the play. "Was I in bounds? Did I get a touchdown? Where was my knee? Did you see the clock?" And you better come prepared with solid answers, unless you want to see the instant replay (in slow motion, or course). I have learned more about football and basketball in the past few months than I managed to learn in three-plus decades of life.

We normally do mellow birthday parties at home, but this time we decided to outsource the whole thing since it was four days past my due date. So in a completely uncharacteristic feat of organization, I arranged all the details of the party back in August. The theme was basketball, and Sidamo was in heaven. He even had a basketball-shaped cake, courtesy of my extremely talented friend Sarah.

Sidamo had a great time, both on the day and in the coming days, when he dedicated himself entirely to building all the Legos he received on his birthday. The thousands of pieces were almost enough to carry him through Christmas, when he received thousands more.

Happy belated birthday to my sweet, funny, brilliant, and completely sports-obsessed little man. We love you!