Summer 2014

So ... I haven't blogged in two years. Been a little busy. But I'm determined to get back to it. Rather than try to cover it all, I'm just going to start with a retrospective of Summer 2014. We pretty much hit the pool at the Harris and Simmons YMCAs every weekend. Nate and Theo had summer camp every week: Sports Camp, Splash Camp, Day Camp, Taekwondo Camp ... it's going to be hard to go back to school!

Simmons YMCA Pool

For the first time in four years, the Daley family hopped on a plane for Minnesota! It was a lot faster, but somewhat problematic. Cancelled and delayed flights, missing luggage, etc., but the boys had a blast running around the airport and playing on the "walkalators."

Stuck in the Detroit airport on the way to Minnesota.

Twinsies with Grandpa.

Feeding the ducks in Lake Winona.

Dangerous moves learned from Great-Uncle Tim Kosidowski.

A couple weeks later, we headed to Mohonk Mountain Lodge in New York for a family reunion with the Haltermann family:

Mohonk Mountain House

Haltermann offspring

Family picture

View of the resort from the top of the mountain.

Family selfie on a paddleboat ride on Lake Mohonk.

Last weekend, we headed to Charleston to play with Rachel, Sue & Charlie:

Nate Daley, Boogie Boarder Extraordinare

Theo Daley, Sandcastle Architect

Great-Uncle Charlie is a hoot!

Aunt Rachel dove into the depths of the swimming pool near dead leaves (eek!) to save our fishies! Hooray!

Pool Ninja Warriors

Squirt Gun Warfare

We have one more week until Nate starts first grade! Where did the time go?

Another brute

It's hard to believe, but after Theo was first born, we had to go back to the doctor three times so that she could see that he was gaining weight. I didn't want to supplement with formula because I knew I was making plenty of milk -- but Theo never was as hungry as his big brother, who was born starving. Even now, he can often be disinterested in food, choosing to color or play with his food while Nate shovels it in.

He's typically been in the mid-range for height and weight, but on the tall side -- usually around 80th percentile for height and 50th for weight. He always seemed littler than Nate was at the same age. In fact, his Aunt Mary once called him a "midge," thinking he was on the small side.

But this week he had his 2 1/2 year appointment and we were stunned to find out that Theo is now in the 97th percentile for height (38.5 inches) and in the 90th percentile for weight (33 lbs). So it looks like we have another brute on our hands, and in spite of Daddy's desire to have two soccer players, it may be football instead. Of course, Nate still asks me to carry him to bed "like a baby." 

Summer rawks!

It's hard to believe it's already August! We've had a fun, busy summer full of traveling. In June, we took yet another road trip to Minnesota to see the Vogel family and help with the Team Vogel vs. Cancer benefit. Nate and Theo loved hanging out with their big cousin Brody and swimming in Grandma and Grandpa's pool. And in July, we headed up to Sebago Lake in Maine to hang out with Mamma and Grampy Daley. The boys spent lots of time in the water -- Theo kept rejoicing, "I swim! I swim!" -- jumping off the dock, climbing the massive rocks on the island, making sandcastles and even going on a super-fun boat ride around the lake.

The rest of the summer has been filled with many trips to the Harris YMCA swimming pools, various spraygrounds and parks throughout Charlotte, Discovery Place, the Nature Museum, and the Mint Museum of Art. Phew, we're tired, but we have to pack it all in before the boys head back to school at the beginning of September. Nate will be going to school every day and Theo will be going three days a week. This is Nate's last year of preschool -- next year is kindergarten! (sniff, sniff)

Spring adventures

For my birthday, we went to the River Jam at the U.S. National Whitewater Center, enjoyed dinner (especially fried pickles), and then headed down by the water to walk around. A bluegrass band was playing and Nate and Theo started dancing in front of the crowd of a few hundred people.

Nate has been reading and writing constantly lately. We'll find things he's written all over the house, like this:

As you can see, he didn't draw his own strawberry picture as instructed. Instead, he wrote about what he loves, in order (starting at the bottom): I love ABC and I love Mommaay and I love Dadey, The End. No mention of Theo. :( But I know he loves him because they hug every morning when they see each other.

Nate had his 4-year-old pediatrician appointment and he is back to being huge. The past couple appointments, he's been in the 80th percentile, but this time he measured in the 94th percentile for height and 97th percentile for weight. The doctor said that when he grows up he'll be bigger than Daddy and probably bigger than Mommy within just a few years. :) The kid eats all the time and he's growing fast! He just graduated from the "Pike" (beginner) swimming lessons and will start taking "Eel" lessons starting in a few weeks. His teacher said that after this next session, he'll be swimming on his own, just in time for our summer trips!

Theo is our little drama king. He loves to dance and sing, and he also has mastered the performance art of throwing a fit. Such is the life of a 2-year-old. He is obsessed with Heidi Songs even though Nate tells him that "Heidi stinks!" Theo is a bit of a daredevil (just like Nate was at his age) and it seems like he always has scraped knees. One day, he fell out of the trampoline and was gushing blood out of his nose. Luckily, nothing was broken or cut -- he just fell on his face and had a bloody nose. Yikes. I was sure we were headed to the ER. I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

Here are a few other pictures from this spring:

Welcome to the Nate Daley Gallery Crawl, featuring such works as "Letter Jungle," "Number Jungle," "The Beginning of the Alphabet" and "Silly Letters." 

Nate and Theo got new beds!

Not really. Nate decided to make a laundry basket into a bed by dragging his blankies, teddy and pillow into it. And Theo, who always wants to be like his big brother, did exactly the same thing.

Happy 2nd birthday, Theo!

It's crazy but true -- Theo turned 2 yesterday! We celebrated with pizza and cake with Aunt Mary and Uncle Adam and then headed to Monkey Joe's for some bouncing around. This is how Theo spent about a half-hour of his time at MJ's:

Theo had his 2-year pediatrician appointment this week. He measured 35 inches (75th percentile) and weighs 28 pounds (50th percentile). By comparison (not that I would EVER compare my children), on his 2nd birthday Nate was 35 3/4 inches and 32 pounds!

When I ask Theo how old he is, he says, "One." I say, "No, how old are you now?" and every time, he says, "Seven." Thank God he will never be that old. :)

Nate the teacher

Nate loves to read books to his little brother.

Letter nerds

Everyone knows that Nate loves his letters. He has letter puzzles, letter books, letter games, letter cards, magnetic letters, letter beads, letter blocks, letter videos. Last Christmas, his favorite present was a $3 pack of letter flashcards. And what was he most thankful for this Thanksgiving? That's right.

Guess what Nate discovered when we went to Discovery Place (a science museum)?

Meanwhile, I thought that Theo was my little hands-on engineer -- a physical genius who could manipulate high-tech devices with his hands. That was, until he turned 18 months. Suddenly, he had a passion for letters just like his brother and quickly learned them all. Not only that, but he loves Nate's "Meet the Sight Words/Phonics" videos and knows all of those too.

If you've been wondering, Nate's favorite letter is C and Theo's favorite letter is O. But MY favorite letter to hear Theo say is X (which sounds like eckthhhhhhh) and second-favorite is W (dubbuwoo).

Trick or treat!

Nate was especially excited about Halloween this year - for the first time, he really understood the process of dressing up and getting lots of candy - and we counted down the days. The only problem is that this year, I couldn't just buy him a costume that he would wear. He was EXTREMELY PICKY about his costume - I let him look on Amazon.com and he scrolled through a thousand costumes, and the only thing he wanted to be was "a boy" (Charlie Brown), a giraffe, and an apple. Weird, right? He also wanted to be "a bone" (the skeleton costume that he wore when he was 1 1/2, which Theo wore this year). We ended up just letting him loose in Party City and he picked out "Lil' Frankie."

 Lil' Frankie, doing his best Frankenstein impression.

 

Lil' Bones, looking identical to his big brother, except maybe a little happier.

Ready to dominate the candy scene in Madison Park.

Crawling around like little babies. No reason. But if Nate does it, Theo does it.

A kiss, and a hug, and a lip

Whenever I leave for work in the morning, the boys go out on the porch to wave goodbye. Lately, Nate has been demanding that I give him "a kiss and a hug and a lip (kiss)." If I forget -- or if I fail to do all three -- he gets very upset. Not only that, but now I must give Theo and Dada a kiss and a hug and a lip. Sometimes I tell him that I don't want to kiss Dada, but he makes me do it anyway.

In the evenings, Chuck leaves to do work at a coffeeshop, and Theo, Nate and I squeeze together on the porch steps and wave goodbye to him. Nate insists that he give each of us a kiss, a hug, and a lip again. Theo will gleefully wave and say, "bye! seeyasoon! missyou!" And then we'll look at the moon and the stars, and I'll corral them inside so we can get ready for bed.

I know there will come a time when the boys won't even look up from their iPhone/laptop/whatever-gadget-exists-then to acknowledge that one of us is leaving, so I cherish the enthusiastic goodbyes and sloppy lips kisses while I have them. They'll be too cool for me soon enough.

Our physical genius and his shoe fetish

Always trying to keep up with his big brother Nate -- who's been known to chest-bump him as a sign of his superiority -- Theo is advanced when it comes to physical skills. Mamma Daley first coined the phrase "physical genius." Just after his 1st birthday, Theo saw that Nate's t-ball set was turned over. He proceeded to put the t-ball stand upright, place the ball on top of it, pick up the bat, and HIT THE BALL! Some kids can't even walk at a year old, yet Theo can play ball with the preschoolers. Physical genius. Since then, Theo has proven his supreme physical abilities by unscrewing and re-screwing the caps of water bottles, removing batteries from all of our remote controls, and running shoelaces through beads.

Another interesting quality of our youngest is his affinity for shoes. He hates being barefoot, and will bring us his shoes and tell us, "On! On!" Sometimes, even as I'm putting him to bed, he'll see his shoes on the dresser and reaches out to them, begging me to put them over his pajama feet. But even better, Theo LOVES wearing his mommy's high-heeled shoes and boots. He'll bring them to me and ask me to put them on him, zip up the boots and clip-clop down the hallway like a real lady. For some reason, he never wants to wear Chuck's shoes -- and the fancier the women's shoes, the better. Chuck insists that it's only because I wear a size 5 and so my shoes fit better (it's true - I'm pretty sure he'll be wearing my size by second grade), plus they make more noise. And a few weeks ago, when Chuck got his shiny new sneakers, Theo caught sight of them and had to put them on immediately. Of course, they just fell off, so Theo opted to put on my fancy green sandals instead.

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!"