Last Saturday we were finally able to get everyone out of the house since the weather warmed up and our precipitation switched over to rain. After breakfast we all headed out to Costco to replenish our grocery supplies. Adin & Zane both enjoy trips to Costco; Adin was especially pleased that he got a few samples to eat while we were shopping. Once we got back home, Doug had the fun job of putting everything away while Adin, Zane & I played outside for a bit. While the boys were napping I took the opportunity to go to the gym – now that I have a membership again, I’m determined to get there 2 days a week! On Sunday, Adin and Zane both had their swim lessons. Doug has been taking Zane to his class which starts at 10:30 and then I took Adin over around 11 so we could all swim in the family pool until Adin’s class started. Zane’s class is not as advanced as what he was doing in Waterbabies though Doug has been doing alternate things with Zane to keep with his level. Adin’s class is going well – he’s picked up on the arm movements quite well. There are 3 other kids in Adin’s class – two boys that are at least 5 by my guess and a girl that looks to be about 4. One of the boys was kind of getting in Adin’s face during class this Sunday and trying to take a ring away that Adin had. I really wanted to go over there and tell the kid to knock it off but Adin was basically ignoring him and didn’t seem upset by his behavior so I had to swallow my instinct to defend him and instead sat back to observe the situation. After class I asked Adin how he enjoyed class and he said “good”. We talked about some of the things that they did and he didn’t mention that boy bothering him so I decided not to bring it up.
Adin was excited to return to school this week. On Monday and Tuesday they watched a short video of Eric Carle painting which Adin thought was great and couldn’t wait to tell me about when I got home from work. Wednesday Doug was responsible for snack which was orange-cranberry muffins. Apparently this was a big hit with the kids since he had Adin and 5 to 6 of his classmates helping in the kitchen. Adin had helped Doug do some prep work the night before and was really excited about it being their turn for snack again. Adin got another surprise on Wednesday when he got to bring the Eric Carle ’take home bag’ with him and spent Friday morning working on his Eric Carle collage.
Zane went to his class on Friday and had a great time. He was walking all over the school and exploring everything. Zane continues to do some walking on his own, walking holding onto our hands and crawling. Sometimes he is really motivated to walk on his own and other times he really wants to hold onto our hands to walk & gets really frustrated if we don’t do it for him. He’s always on the go and still enjoys getting into whatever Adin is playing with. Zane also loves to climb and goes up the steps quickly. He really wants to go down the steps walking which we strongly discourage! Zane loves to look outside, play with light switches and open & close things. He is very vocal and has a large number of words in his repertoire including hi, car, cat, gar (which is for garbage). Like his big brother, Zane is fascinated with watching garbage trucks. Anytime we say the word garbage, he looks out the window to see if one of the garbage trucks is coming. He’s still a champion sleeper and eater. Since we returned from Sacramento, Zane has been sleeping in until 10 am most days and then will take his afternoon from ~1 or 1:30 to ~4 or 5 pm. He’s got a large range of foods in his diet now including chicken, lamb and eggs. Zane really enjoys feeding himself and most meals we try to have things that he can eat on his own. He’s really interested in using a spoon and will often take the spoon from us after we put food on it and put it in his mouth on his own. We also will give him a bowl of food and the spoon to let him practice getting the food on the spoon. Its hit or miss with that but he enjoys the practice! Zane is completely off bottles now and drinks from his sippy cup and also from regular glass cups when in his high chair. Zane still has a primarily happy disposition but does experience strong emotions. He’ll throw himself onto the ground, crying & screaming when he’s frustrated. He needs a couple of moments to do that and then will re-engage with us. I have to wonder if this will increase or decrease as he gets older!
Adin & Zane also hosted a playdate with a few friends on Thursday and with Austin for a little while on Friday afternoon. We don’t have much planned for the boys this weekend outside of swim class on Sunday. Doug & I are escaping, I mean, going out on Saturday night which we are both looking forward to as having a meal without children is a luxury we don’t get very often!
It started snowing here on Saturday afternoon when we were on our way home from a family concert at Town Hall in Seattle. We have a couple of inches on the ground and the forecast is calling for more snow through Wednesday. Adin has been so excited to have snow so we’ve been outside to play several times each day. Sunday morning when he woke up and saw that there was more snow on the ground & that all the tracks he made the day before were covered up, he asked to go outside. I figured there was no way I’d get him to do anything else so by 7:30 Adin & I were bundled up in warm clothes and playing outside. Yesterday I had Zane out in the stroller while it was snowing which he thought was quite funny. Today we bundled him up in his snowsuit and took him outside again. He doesn’t want to touch the snow but did have fun riding on the sled with Adin and really liked it when Doug took him down the hill in the sled. Adin has been having fun pulling the sled around, today he loaded up small meow (a stuffed animal that is really a dog but we call him small meow) in the sled and we walked him around the neighborhood. Adin also enjoys riding in the slide and he did surprisingly well holding onto Zane while Doug pulled them around. Adin also had fun going down the hill in the sled with Doug.
Doug pulling Adin & Zane on the sled
Last week the boys were both back at school though neither one of them was feeling all that great. Adin had gotten over his fever by Monday (he had a fever from Friday through Sunday) but still had a stuffy nose and was coughing. At school he was fine but his mood at home wasn’t that great either! Fortunately he seems to be completely recovered now. Zane had a slight fever one day along with a stuffy nose and cough. Zane still has a cough mostly during the night but that is getting better since we put the humidifier in his room. Doug has also been sick and is slowly recovering.
The first weekend in January Adin & Zane both started their swim lessons at the proclub. Adin’s class is more advanced then what he was doing at Waterbabies - doing some actual arm strokes both face down going forward in the water and on their backs. He picked up on the technique right away and says that he is enjoying his class. Zane’s class is pretty similiar to his waterbabies class so far (since the roads were still covered with snow on Sunday morning and he wasn’t feeling well we decided not to take Zane to his class this past weekend).
We travelled to Sacramento to visit Grandpa, Donna & Grandma from December 27th – January 2nd. The boys did great at the airport and during the flights. Adin is such a travel pro by now, he explained the entire process of checking in, going through security, boarding the airplane and the flight to Zane. He didn’t want Zane to get scared so thought it was his responsibility to explain how things go!
Friday we went to the Sacramento Railroad museum which Adin was very excited about. There are a number of engines and train cars in one part of the museum that you can look at and go into. Adin seemed a little bit overwhelmed at first since there was so much to see so we let him set the pace of how long he wanted to look at each thing and helped guide him to each of the different cars. He even got to sit in one of the engines and pull on some of the controls which he thought was very cool. After looking at the exhibits, we went upstairs and spent some time at the kids area which had 3 large train tables with lots of tracks & trains to play with. Adin & Zane both enjoyed playing with the trains there. After playing for a while, we walked through an exhibit of model trains and left the museum. We went for lunch at the Flaming Grill. Adin & Zane both had a blast sitting in the outdoor eating area. Zane chowed down on the lunch that Doug had packed and Adin ate an entire half of the buffalo cheese-burger (and fries!) that I had ordered.
On New Year’s Day we all took the boys to a playground so they could expend some energy outside. The other days of the visit, we spent at Grandpa & Donna’s house which had been stocked with fun toys for Adin & Zane. By the end of the trip, Zane had mastered getting on & off a riding toy and pushing himself on it. Zane also enjoyed pushing Adin while he was riding on the truck!
The weather was a little bit warmer in Sacramento than in Seattle plus we had sunny blue skies a couple of days which was nice! The only drawback to the trip was that Zane did not want to sleep in the pack & play. He would scream & cry anytime we put him into it. For bedtime we were able to get him to sleep in it for a few hours but he always ended up in bed with Doug & I. We gave up on trying to have him sleep in it for nap times so I ended up holding him so he would actually get some naps during the day. Adin slept well in the air mattress and sleeping bag that Grandpa & Donna got for him. It was the first time he had used either of those things so he thought it was fun. He did tell us that next time we visit he needs a quieter place to sleep!
We enjoyed spending time visiting with Grandpa, Donna and Grandma & look forward to seeing them again in March.
We had a wonderful Christmas. Adin woke up around 7 am on Christmas morning and came into our bedroom. He must have forgotten that it was Christmas morning because he asked me to go into his room & snuggle with him. About 20 minutes later we went downstairs, Doug had turned on the Christmas tree lights and other lights in the living room so Adin said he wanted to go see why the lights were on. He walked into the doorway and his face lit up when he saw all the presents under the tree. We talked about how there were gifts for everyone (even Spunky) under the tree so Adin needed to find a gift with his name on it. He found a gift from Uncle Todd, Aunt Deb & the kids and wanted to open that one first. He was thrilled to see it was a truck that had a trailer hauling two tractors and asked if we could open the package so he could play with it. We opened the package for him and he played with it for a while before asking to open another present. Zane woke a little while later and joined us at the tree. He wasn’t very interested in opening his presents, he wanted to touch the Christmas tree lights and play with the doors in the living room. A little while later we took a short break from opening gifts to eat our traditional Christmas chocolate chip pancake breakfast and to check that Santa had eaten the pasta that Adin had left out for him the night before & the reindeer their carrots. Adin had also written several notes to Santa which he had taken with him. Adin had also created a ‘picture book’ but Santa left that – we didn’t realize that Santa was expected to take it too!
After breakfast & clean-up we went back to opening a few more gifts but while Zane was napping, Adin played with his new toys and didn’t open any more gifts until Zane was awake. We had lunch and spent some more time playing with new toys before both boys went for their naps. Adin only slept for about an hour but that was enough to get him energy to power through the rest of the day. we were having our neighbor over for dinner on Christmas evening so when Adin got up from his nap, he & I got into the shower and got dressed (we had been spending the day in our PJs). When Sid arrived, Adin showed him some of his new toys and then we played while Doug finished up dinner. After Zane woke up, I played with the boys in the living room some more while Doug & Sid hung out in the kitchen. We sat down to dinner around 5:30 and enjoyed a wonderful meal of salad, caesar-crusted steak, Brussel sprout salad and sweet potatoes followed by cookies for desert. Adin was thrilled that he was able to have cookies and ice cream! After dinner, we sat in the living room where the boys played and we visited with Sid. It wasn’t long after Sid left that it was time for Adin to get ready for bed so we read a few books and he headed for bed. There were still several presents under the tree for everyone since we had taken our time opening everything up so we assured Adin that he could open more gifts the next day.
The next day Adin slept again until 7 am and waited patiently for Doug to wake up so he could open some more gifts. Like the day before, Adin would open a gift and play with it for a while before moving onto the next one. Zane was also a little more interested in opening gifts today and was enjoying pushing around a big fire truck Adin had received from Santa. When Zane went to bed for his morning nap, Doug & Adin worked on putting together the activity bus Zane had received as a Christmas gift. They finished up shortly after Zane woke up so the boys spent some time playing with the bus before lunchtime. Adin had not yet discovered that he had gifts in his Christmas stocking but he did discover that the next day! I talked with him about how the gifts in his stocking were the last ones to be opened – I didn’t want him thinking that he would keep finding more presents day after day.
As for me, I really enjoyed all the time I was able to spend at home with Doug, Adin & Zane over the Christmas holiday. It was very nice to have no obligations other than spending time together and enjoying the holiday!
