Maine was wicked awesome!

After our 21-hour-long drive to Minnesota, we continued our tour of the "M" states and headed up to Maine to spend time with the Daleys. We decided to break up our trip and stay overnight in Kingston, NY, at Chuck's Mamma's house, but unfortunately, didn't arrive until 6am (yes, we left late, and we got stuck in miserable miles-long traffic in Virginia). So after a short nap in NY, we were on the road again for Maine -- what everyone calls "the camp" on Frye Island, in the middle of Sebago Lake. There are four cabins with no electricity or running water, but also a fabulous bathhouse with a shower, sink, toilet, and refrigerator.

The boys LOVED swimming in the lake and playing with the sand. And we had no idea, but Wylie is an amazing swimmer and spent the majority of her days chasing ducks around the lake.

 

 Playing with Mamma, who Nate deemed the "sand monster."

 Wylie in hot pursuit of some ducks.

 

 Shooting hoops with Dad.

 

Theo wakes up at the crack of dawn and enjoys some Froot Loops on the beach.

Crashing at Great-Mamma's house in the middle of a heat wave. Red and sweaty!

Minnesota!

At the end of June, we traveled to Minnesota for the Team Vogel vs. Cancer benefit and to visit all of our Vogel/Wissman relatives. The benefit was an amazing success, and we were able to spend a lot of time with family. Nate and Theo especially enjoyed their cousin Brody.

 The three Vogel grandsons.

 

 Theo with Cousin Brody.

 The deer park.

 At the Lakeview Drive-In, just a block from where I grew up. 

We went to a park pretty much every day, and Nate and Theo both got to enjoy my parents' swimming pool. The drive wasn't too bad either way -- it was our fourth trek to Minnesota and we made the best time: 20.5 hours.

Next up: we're heading to Maine this weekend!

Beach trip

We kicked off June with a trip to Charleston - to house sit for Sue and Charlie. Let me tell you, it was hard work, lounging by their pool on the marsh and relaxing on the beach. Actually, there wasn't much relaxing, chasing two boys around, but we had a lot of fun!

 

 Nate builds a sand castle -- more like a pile of sand.

 Theo tidies up the beach.

 

 He doesn't like getting dirty.

 The boys build a lagoon.

Theo practices his downward dog pose.

Big boys

Once again, I'm trying to cover two months worth of blogging in a single entry. Sigh. Where does the time go?

The first huge milestone was Nate's 3rd birthday on April 12. It was the first year when he really anticipated his birthday, the cake, and the presents. Of course, in spite of several more expensive presents, his favorite was a $3 pack of letter flashcards.

For the past year or so, Nate has been closer to normal at his pediatrician visits, like 75th percentile. But this past visit, Nate weighed in at 36 lbs. and measured 40 inches long -- putting him in the 97th percentile for height and 93rd for weight. Is that crazy? He looks like a 4-year-old. I can be terribly self-conscious when he throws a fit in public or when his Pull-Up is showing because people think he's older than he really is. I wonder if he will average out or if he will always be big. I told him that he'll be bigger than me someday, which he thinks is pretty awesome.

Theo just had his 15 month appointment, weighing in at 24lb. 10oz and measuring 32.5 inches long. That puts him in the 80th percentile for height (same as last time) and 55th percentile for weight (up from 45th last time). He's become a better eater in the past few months and loves eggs with broccoli and spinach, yogurt, applesauce, grilled cheese, and pancakes. He still doesn't like milk too much, but we try to get him to drink as much as possible, and the yogurt makes up for some of it. And I'm still nursing him, but it doesn't have the calcium he gets from whole milk.

Theo is like a mini-Nate these days, climbing all over the furniture, running around, copying everything his big brother does. His baby days are over (sniff, sniff). Also, we've entered the "terrible 1s," which means stubborn fits and arching his back to protest whenever we say "no." But when he's not throwing a tantrum, he's very mellow and really sweet.

Theo is starting to talk, with words we can actually understand. "Dada" is his favorite, of course. "Mama" sounds more like "Baba," but I'll take it. He's in a destructive phase, which can be a problem because Nate loves to put things in order (letters, colors, shapes, etc.). The two of them play very well together - cars, trains, going through this tunnel we have, jumping on the bed. They'll just giggle at each other. It's pretty adorable.

Potty Time!

Since Nate turned 2, we've been dreading potty training. He is the most stubborn kid ever born, a cruel punishment for super-stubborn me and painfully stubborn Chuck. So when it comes to being patient, trying and failing but trying again (a theme song from the DVD "Elmo's Potty Time"), and delayed gratification ("if you pee on the potty, you get an M&M!"), Nate's stubbornness just results in a loud, weepy ball of frustration.

We casually tried potty training last year, and our pediatrician said that maybe he just wasn't ready and to hold off until closer to his 3rd birthday. Then my aunt Sue, who's taught a class of 2- and 3-year-olds for 10 years (God help her), said that my pediatrician was a wuss and that I needed to just stop putting diapers on him. We did a little bit of both. On the weekends, I would let him go without a diaper or pants around the house. He usually ended up peeing on the floor. It got so bad that Chuck demanded, "HE'S NOT GOING WITHOUT DIAPERS UNTIL HE'S POTTY TRAINED!" I would put him on the potty and sit there with him. We would go through these alphabet flashcards (his favorite thing ever), and a few times, he got relaxed enough that he started to go. But he never told us he had to go, which actually meant that we (me and Chuck) were potty trained, not him.

But a couple weekends ago, something clicked. "Mommy, I haffa go potty!" I put him on the potty, he pointed his wiener down, and he went! We let him wear his undies (he has a variety of Diego, Sesame Street and Super Why undies) during the day. Sometimes he would start to go in them, but for the most part he would tell us he had to go, we'd put him on the potty AND HE WOULD GO AGAIN! Then, during the week, he would go. And he would even go at school. Now he never wears a diaper during the day -- just Pull-Ups if we're going somewhere and of course at night because he still SOAKS it.

Sounds great, right? Well, I said Nate was potty trained, but he's not poopy trained. Meaning, the first thing the kids get is the sensation of having to pee, but pooping is a different story. So where is he pooping? In those cute Diego/Sesame Street/Super Why undies that are otherwise completely dry. And I can tell you, cleaning poop out of undies is about a bzillion times worse than cleaning Nate's adult-sized poop out of his diaper. I'm hoping he catches on soon ...

Theo's 1-year stats

 Theo had his 12-month pediatrician appointment last week. He weighed in at 22 lb. 2 oz. and measured 30.5 inches long. That's 45th percentile for weight and 75th percentile for height. Not that I ever compare my boys, but Nate was exactly the same length at 1 year, but weighed 24 lb. 9 oz. (both were in 75th percentile). Theo never had Nate's full face and chunky legs -- and he certainly doesn't have his brother's appetite, preferring to play with his food rather than eat it. You can imagine how after raising the "human garbage disposal," this completely blows my mind.

"No, Mommy, you eat it!"

Sad news

I'm sad to report that our beloved kitty Truman is no longer with us. He had been missing for about a month and we just assumed he had wandered off and would show up eventually -- he's always been a very resourceful outdoor cat. Unfortunately, he was stuck in a neighbor's crawl space and she didn't find him until it was too late. We brought him back home and buried him in our backyard with a kitty toy and a can of his favorite food. He was a birthday gift to Chuck the first year we were dating in 2002, and it's hard to imagine life without him. But we have lots of great memories, from him trying to rape Yeats (not really) to how he always would jump in the shower with Chuck when he was a kitty to his super-loud purring whenever he would snuggle with us. RIP Truman -- you were the best kitty ever!

Happy 1st birthday, Theo!

Somehow, my little baby Theo is already 1 year old. It doesn't seem like it's been that long since he was a newborn squirming around in our arms, meeting his big brother Nate, smiling for the first time, learning to sit up, to crawl, to walk ... the time goes by much faster with the second child! But compared to a big kid like Nate, Theo still seems like a baby to me.

We celebrated the Big 1 with a little party at our house with Auntie Mary and Uncle Adam, and our friend Sue Ann and her 2-month-old Eric. Theo is just about the pickiest eater I've ever met (in stark contrast to his brother), but surprise -- he loves cake!

 A cake with real cars that you can play with when the cake is gone! 

(The letters and numbers were Nate's favorite part.)

 

The Great Cake Massacre.

The Daley crew.

"But Mommy, where are all of MY presents?"

Theo started walking a couple months ago and is now a pro. He's still not that great about getting himself up without pulling up on furniture (or my pant leg), but once he's up and walking, he can make some serious distance in no time. Give him a couple more weeks and he'll be running!

The Holi-daze

No, I haven't posted anything in two months, and have yet to cover Christmas, which was a month ago. So let's catch up:

After two successful drives to Minnesota over the summer, we made our first wintertime attempt, knowing how miserable flying can be over the holidays. If we got sidetracked by snow, we figured we could just stop at a hotel. Our drive up to Minnesota was the easiest ever -- the roads were perfectly dry, and we bypassed Chicago entirely by taking I-74, which was technically longer but we made it in 20 hours, our best time so far. Unfortunately, on the drive back, we ended up passing through a terrible snowstorm with nowhere to turn off (not that we were eager to pull off in the middle of W.V. anyway ...)

Nate and Theo loved every minute of Minnesota. They got so much attention from the whole family and got to bond with their cousin Brody. Nate kept asking him, "Brody, you wanna play cars?" It was pretty adorable. Nate and Brody also got to sit at their own personal Toy Story kids table, where Brody could see how the human garbage disposal could wolf down as much food as his dad. Also, Nate is as tall as Brody now. But Brody is still the boss.

Santa comes to Grandma and Grandpa Wissman's house every year. Nate refused to look at him.

Best buds. "Bwody, you wanna play cars?"

 Where all the cool kids sit.

After getting back from Minnesota, we ramped up for another Christmas with the Daleys. Nate and Theo enjoyed all the attention. If you can believe it, they got even more toys, including a train set from Mamma and Grampy!

Theo loves to destroy the train set, and Nate will tell him, "Stop it, Theo. You're making a mess! You need a time out!"

Christmas with the Daleys was fun at first, but then Theo got the pukes and couldn't keep anything down. He lost a whole pound and still had random puking episodes for a whole week. Even worse, he gave it to Mamma, who was stuck in bed with the sickness for a couple days. :( We hope everyone will be healthy for the next family get-together.

Happy 'ween!

It's hard to believe it's almost Thanksgiving ... and I haven't even written about Halloween yet! It was the first year that Nate could actually understand what Halloween was. For weeks, we trained him to say, "trick or treat" to get candy. "What do you say, Nate?" "Happy 'ween!" Good enough.

 A very scary dinosaur!

 Our crawling baby lobster.

We loaded our T-Rex and baby lobster into the double stroller and found a well-lit street in our neighborhood where the houses are all decked out for Halloween. Within five minutes, our baby lobster was asleep. At the very first house we went to, we said, "trick or treat!" (And by "we," I mean me and Chuck. Nate stood silent.) Behind the door, we heard some scary breathing, then the door opened up with a lady in a mask that even scared me, let alone a 2-year-old. Already a little apprehensive about the dark and his scary costume, Nate looked like he was about to cry. When she realized how little he was, she took the mask right off and offered him some candy. We went to about 10 houses, then headed back home. Baby lobster slept through it all, but looked adorable nonetheless!

Earlier in October, we went to Hodges Farm to pick pumpkins and see all the animals. We went last year when Nate was 1 1/2 and I was prego with Theo. You can read about it here: Pumpkin' pickin' and Halloween. It's crazy how much Nate has changed. This farm has about a million pumpkins in at least 10 different fields. And Nate would walk from pumpkin to pumpkin, exclaiming, "Punkin!" "Another punkin!" as though it was the most exciting thing ever. He picked out a few to bring home, but he wanted nothing to do with the carving process or pulling out its guts. (Surprising, for a child who loves to play in the dirt.) Nate also got to meet a few goats, horses, cows, chickens, and he still tells me all about them and the different noises they make.

 A punkin, Mommy! A PUNKIN!!!!!

 Theo just wanted to cruise.

Theo is almost 9 months old already. With two bottom teeth, he is just starting to eat Cheerios and mashed up apples and bananas. He started crawling about a month ago and is an expert cruiser. He can even stand on his own for about 15 seconds, and he can balance really well while he's kneeling. He especially likes to crawl to the glass door, get on his knees and pound on the door at the cats. He is fascinated with Wylie and Yeats -- Truman steers clear of babies these days -- and tends to abuse them if he can get his hands (and teeth) on them.

Theo loves swinging in the backyard!

The boys snuggling in bed with Dada. 

Watching their favorite show together -- "Super Why." Can you tell they're brothers?

Cruisin' for trouble

Overnight, my innocent 8-month-old has turned into a troublemaker. For the past few months, he was content to sit and quietly play with his toys for long periods of time. It's been a while since we really had to worry about him toppling over. Now, he's no longer content sitting and is constantly cruising along the coffee table, his crib, even the bathtub. He started crawling last weekend, but it seems like he only wants to crawl to a place where he can cruise and get into mischief. Nate was the same way.

Theo's newest fascination is with paper products: napkins, magazines, books, etc. He tears them to shreds and will stuff them in his mouth if you're not watching. It's even harder with a second kid because not only do we have to watch out for dangerous items we might leave lying around, we also have to make sure Nate doesn't give him anything he could choke on. He gave Theo a nickel the other day -- very generous, I know. It's hard to explain to a 2-year-old what he can't give his brother.

As you saw in the previous post, Nate's awesome sleeping habits are over. For a good year, he slept soundly from 7pm to 6am. It was early, but it also gave me a few hours to myself every night. Now, if he takes a nap during the day, he's up until 11pm. He usually sleeps in until 8 or 9, but still. If he doesn't take a nap, he gets SUPER CRANKY around 6-7pm and cries a lot.  

Remember when Nate barely talked? Those days are over. He seriously never shuts up. Here's a conversation from this morning:

"Mama. Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Cinnamon Toast Crunch"
"Nate, we don't have Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Do you want Life?"
"Mama. Life. Life. Life. Life. Life. Life. Life. Life."
I put some dry Life Cereal on the table for him.
He grabs my leg. "Mama. I wanna bowl. I wanna bowl. I wanna bowl. I wanna bowl. I wanna bowl."

You get the picture. By being really annoying, he gets what he wants much faster.

Serious nap resistance

About every other day, Nate will avoid taking his nap. This is how it's going:

Another rockin' road trip

The Daley Family

This post is coming about two weeks too late, but we have to mention our trip to lovely Cumberland, Maryland, over Labor Day weekend to visit the Daley family. After our 20-hour trips to Minnesota, the 7-hour drive to Cumberland was a breeze. Well, it would have been if we hadn't left at 3pm on the Friday before Labor Day. But that's OK -- we took an "alternate route" through some of Charlotte's suburbs' historic downtowns. It didn't seem to save us any time, but at least it was pretty!

The whole way up, we kept telling Nate that he would see Mary and "A'um," Mamma and "Beepsby," and Pete and "Nanoo" (that's what he calls Jess. Not sure why.) He was a little shy at first, but all a strange relative needs to do is to take him outside and you've instantly become his favorite. Peter and Jess got to meet Theo for the first time -- and Mamma and Grampy hadn't seen him since he was just 6 weeks old. He showed them his amazing acrobatic skills, his superb sitting capabilities, his penchant for smiling, and his out-of-this-world hair volume.

Speaking of hair volume, Theo got his fifth haircut last week after he was mistaken for a girl three times in as many days. I'm not going to say who accidentally said, "How old is she?" but he is the author of "Banktown: The Rise and Struggles of Charlotte's Big Banks." And it may not just be Theo's hair; I suspect his rosy cheeks and pouty lips may add to his feminine mystique. But that's OK because like his brother, the kid is all boy. He likes roughhousing, jumping in his exersaucer like a maniac, slamming objects together, being really noisy and making lots of messes.

Nate is LOVING preschool. There is only one other boy in his class and five girls, so he has his choice of the ladies. He's currently looking for one who shares his passion for the alphabet. He likes to do art projects and sing in music class, and of course he also loves the park there. Chuck got Nate some Hot Wheels and a car ramp a few weeks ago, and it is his new favorite thing to do. He's also been bringing his comforter out into the living room and lying on the couch with a pillow -- or, better yet, covering up his Elmos (he has three) or Theo (who doesn't really dig it). He knows how to relax!

The end of summer

It's been a while since we've updated the blog. We've spent a good chunk of the summer in Minnesota to spend time with Joe and the rest of the family. The past few months have been really, really tough, but the blessing is that we were able to spend so much time together. The Vogels have seen Theo pretty much every month since he was born, and Nate is no longer shy around his relatives. In fact, we've heard "Grrrama and Bumpa!" constantly since we came back to Charlotte. He's eager to have them visit soon!

Theo with Grandma and Grandpa at the Loggers game.

Nate and his Grandpa. Still a little shy. :)

Nate and Grandma enjoy a dip in the pool, his new favorite activity!

 Theo is enamored with big cousin Brody.

Grandpa and Theo.

Theo is already 6 months old and has quickly become the Rolling-Over Champion of the World. Seriously, you can't put the kid down for five seconds before he flips -- and then flips again. He's also beginning to master squirming around on his belly. It's not quite a crawl, but he can make some serious traction in no time at all. We started him on solids a little bit after he turned 5 months, and it took a while before he got the hang of it, or even seemed to like it. That was strange after our experience with Nate, who was an eating champ the second we started him on cereal at 4 months. But now Theo is doing really well. He's had rice cereal, oatmeal, barley, peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas, apples, peaches, pears, and prunes. He had his 6-month appointment last week and weighed 18 lb., 8 oz. and measured 27.5 inches long. That's 75th percentile for weight and 85th percentile for height.

 Who could resist that sweet face?

Drool from teething ... and yet no teeth. :(

Getting ready to crawl!

Nate has become obsessed with letters and numbers. He mumbles the alphabet or counts to 20 as he's playing, and he sometimes says the entire alphabet backwards -- just as fast as I could. He recognizes letters and numbers in random, everyday things, like a bitten-off pretzel ("9!"), a mark on the wall ("L!"), or his ketchup after he swipes into it ("C!"). I guess the child of two English majors is bound to have a love of letters.

The obsession.

 Two nerds working hard.

After a long day of work and play, the kid knows how to relax.

Theo's Four-Month Photos

These were taken last month -- Theo actually turns 5 months today! He is rolling over, sitting up pretty well, and passing his toys back and forth between his hands. We're thinking about starting him on solids sometime before he turns 6 months (Nate started at 4 months, but that's because he was always ravenous). Until then, we'll enjoy his relatively sweet-smelling diapers. :)

Mommy or Daddy?

Before I had Nate, I wondered if he would prefer Chuck because he stays home. Would he resent me for leaving him every day to go to work? Would Chuck be the one he would run to when he skinned his knee or needed to snuggle before bed? Well, no. Nate knows very well the difference between Mommy and Daddy. And now that he can talk so much, he likes to express his preference.

When we take Nate outside, he almost always runs straight to his swing and says, "Swing! Swing! Swing!" But when Mommy tries to put him in his swing, he says, "Dada!" If Mommy continues to act like she's going to swing him, he starts whining, "Dada! Dada! Dada!" Why? Because when Daddy pushes him, he goes so high that he catches some air and is within inches of wrapping himself around the tree branch. Even when Mommy pushes her hardest, she physically can't make the swing into a dangerous carnival ride. So Daddy wins.

But in the evenings when he's winding down for bed, Nate will bring his books into the living room and bring them directly to me. Sometimes I'm nursing or otherwise occupied. I'll say, "Daddy can read you that book." Daddy tries, but he just doesn't have Mommy's talent for vocal inflection or animated storytelling. So Nate always insists on having Mommy read him his bedtime stories. Mommy wins.