Our visit with Chiara and Kael

We were thrilled to be able to spend some time right before Christmas with our good friend Chiara and her son Kael. (Her grandparents and aunt and uncle live in the same town as my mom!) Kael was born on October 24th, so he's just two days older than Lila. That's pretty cool considering their Mommys' due dates were two weeks apart!

We took John and Kael to the arboretum one afternoon for a walk outdoors and to see the train display. I think both boys enjoyed themselves, although it's hard to tell with a two-month-old! John certainly had fun.

I sure wish we lived closer to each other so we could have regular playdates! Kael and Lila would make a really cute pair.

Trains, trains, trains....and other holiday fun

John and I visited the arboretum's Christmas train display at least four times in December. I just happened to read about it in one of the arboretum brochures, and I'm so glad I did because it was a HUGE hit with John.

His favorite trains in the display were the Amtrak passenger train and the Thomas the Tank Engine train. He would get very upset when those trains were stopped to allow other trains to travel the lines. "Trains pomin (coming)?" he'd ask, almost frantic with worry. The first video shows John's reaction to the Amtrak train, and the second video shows his reaction to Thomas.



Arboretum train display part 1 from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.




Arboretum train display, part 2 from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.


Some of my favorite photos of John from the month of December are these two, in which John is dressed to kill in the new Christmas tree skirt that Grandma bought at Target. The tree skirt would make a nice poncho, no?




John played in the snow for the first time ever on December 9th! After we had put his snowpants on, I got some photos of him pretending to take a drink from Mommy's (empty) Starbucks cup.



Here he is walking around in his full cold-weather get-up on the sidewalk behind Grandma's house. He wanted to build a snowman, but the snow was too powdery to be able to pack into snowballs, so we made snow angels instead. Then we trekked into the front yard and discovered the chunks of snow the snow plow had left behind. We were able to fashion a very rudimentary Frosty out of these chunks, but sadly, Frosty didn't last very long. As soon as we'd built him, John took him apart again.

On December 16th, all four of us went to a Christmas luncheon for a group my mom belongs to. I decided to dress John and Lila in their holiday outfits -- John wore a red-and-white striped button-down shirt with an argyle sweater over it, and Lila wore the sparkly red Scotty-dog dress she got from her Uncle Ethan and Aunt Lindsay.

I especially love this last pic.....as you can tell from the smiles on their faces, the kids are enjoying each other's company!

I like these last two videos because it's just so sweet to see John by the Christmas tree. He'd just helped me open the big box we got in the mail from Ma Bonnie and Papa Jeff with all our wrapped Christmas gifts, and he'd hung his new (unwrapped) helicopter ornament on the tree. Then he was playing around a little bit with the presents from Uncle Ethan and Aunt Lindsay that were already under the tree (which he'd been talking about and moving around the house all day long).

Grandma's Christmas tree, part 1 from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.

Grandma's Christmas tree, part 2 from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.

Videos of John and Lila

These are some videos I took in December of John and Lila. The kids aren't necessarily interacting in all of the videos, but they both make appearances in them at least. My favorites are the "Peanut Butter and Jelly" and "Kissing feet" videos.

Peanut butter and jelly from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.

the ABC song from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.

John and Lila hanging out from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.

Kissing feet from Sarah Schuchard on Vimeo.

John's 23-month birthday

In honor of John's 23-month birthday, which was December 8th, I've compiled a list of things John started doing in the last month. In no particular order, John started.....

.....Saying "Happen?" (meaning "What happened?") when he doesn't know why something is the way it is or why he can't find something.

.....Wanting to wear certain items of clothing or footwear. He prefers shirts with pictures on them, like his firetruck shirt. He frequently changes his mind about shoes. Sometimes he wants to wear his nice brown shoes. Other times he'll choose his blue Converse sneakers or his black and blue duck boots. For a while after I first bought him his boots, he wanted to wear those NONSTOP -- he even wore them during his naps a couple of times. The great thing about the boots is that he can put them on himself (although then I'm not guaranteed that they'll be on the right feet).

.....Calling out for people to come get him while he's in his crib, either before he falls asleep or after he wakes up. He'll say, "Mommy here? Ma here? Daddy here? Ha-wee (Halley) here? Wi-wa (Lila) here? Eat-man (Ethan, our friend) here? Win-say (Ethan's wife, Lindsay) here?", thinking they'll come "here" to pick him up. Occasionally he'll throw in a wild card, like our neighbor, Rita ("Wi-ta"),whom he doesn't see very often, but whom he nonetheless thinks might be available to come get him.

.....Asking to go to specific places, like "Barbucks" (Starbucks), Target, "Moo-seum" (Children's Museum), or the "Choo-choo store" (Anderson's Bookstore in downtown Naperville, which has a Thomas the Tank Engine train display). He also recognizes stores when we pass them and asks to go in them.

.....Eating peas!!!! This is a huge accomplishment, since John used to gag on them. I've been hoping for a long time that he would start eating peas because they are so easy to fix. One day I was eating peas for a snack (I'm trying to eat more vegetables without having to eat salads), and John asked if he could have a bite. He's been eating them ever since. This is how I discovered that John will eat literally anything if he sees me eat it (a good thing if I'm eating vegetables, a bad thing if I'm eating cookies).

.....Saying "John do it!" I love that he is exerting his independence.

.....Playing regularly with blocks. He finally got interested in playing with the bag of Mega Blocks I got him eight or nine months ago. His favorite thing to do with them is to keep stacking them on top of each other until the tower collapses. John also started playing with Legos. My mom found two huge bagfuls of old Legos in the storage section of the basement, so she brought them out and washed them in a bleach solution. "Weg-os," he calls them.

.....Pronouncing words, in general, much more accurately. He is also now able to more closely approximate many bisyllabic words that he formerly abbreviated as monosyllabic words. For example, several months ago, he started calling Grandma Kay "Ma," but he now he calls her "Jamma" or "Gamma."

.....Using possessives more frequently. (I think he may have started using them for the first time while Ross was home on leave.) Sometimes he correctly adds the -s suffix onto nouns to show ownership ("Ma's house," "Mommy's car") and sometimes he doesn't ("John chair"). He is just starting to use the possessive pronoun "mine," but he has overregularized the rule governing possessive nouns and therefore adds an -s suffix to the possessive pronoun ("mine-s"). This is fascinating stuff for a language acquisition nerd like me.

.....Saying "hmmm" when he thinks something is interesting. He no doubt picked this up from his mother, who often ponders things aloud.

.....Drinking nonfat milk instead of whole milk. I gradually switched him over by way of 2% milk. He hasn't seemed to notice.

.....Sitting in his booster seat for every meal. This was a necessary change of location because he wouldn't stop kicking the foot rest on his highchair and I got tired of asking him to stop. But, while he doesn't get to choose where he sits anymore, he does get to choose other things, such as which color bib he wants (blue or green) and whether he wants to use a fork or a spoon to eat. In general, I give John oodles of choices so he feels like he has a say in what he does.

.....Calling himself "John" instead of "Naan" or "Naan Naan." He can also say his last name! "Coo-chard," he says. "John Coo-chard." He may have actually started doing this in November, but I can't remember for sure. It was definitely very recently.

.....Spelling his first name. He'll say, very matter-of-fact-ly, "J-o-h-n, John." I love to hear him do this over the monitor when he's talking to himself in his crib. He's got to be looking at the letters on his wall while he's doing it.

In closing, here is an extremely interesting fact about John at 23 months.....

He still doesn't say "yes"! It's the strangest thing -- if you ask him if he wants to do something, and he does, he'll say, "ok" or "uh-huh" in a very sing-songy tone. He'll never say "yes." Never. The only way he'll say it is if I ask him to repeat the word after I say it. He says "no" very well, though (sigh).

Anyway..... it's so hard to believe that our baby boy will only technically be a baby for a few more days! We are having a construction-themed birthday party for him the day after his birthday (the 9th) at Grandma Kay's house, so I will be posting pics from that very soon.

Daddy goes back to work.....

Ross had to return overseas on November 28th, and it was definitely much, much harder to say goodbye this time than it was back in June -- at least twice as hard, since we now had two children!

Before we left for the airport, we took a few family photos at Grandma's house. John was not a very willing subject that day (see below), but the photos of Daddy and Lila turned out really nicely. Of course we took a husband-wife photo too. You can tell how awake we are, hehe.

We miss you every minute of every day, Daddy. Be safe and come home soon!

Lila's 1-month birthday

Our little girl had her one-month birthday the day after Thanksgiving (November 26th). We're not sure what she weighed at the one-month mark, but it was probably between 7.5-8 pounds, since she weighed 6 pounds, 14 ounces at her two-week doctor's visit and 8 pounds, 14 ounces at her six-week doctor's visit. Clearly she is a good nurser!

We weren't always sure that she would be, given that she was in the hospital those first nine days. Since the evening of her birth, we had been bringing pumped milk to the NICU in anticipation of her coming off of the sugar water. When her breathing was a little more under control, she started receiving small amounts of my milk through her feeding tube. Then, a few days later, she started on bottles with my milk. Finally, three days before she was released, I was allowed to nurse her for the first time. I was so nervous! She did not latch on as easily as John did, which made me even more nervous.

It took some extra effort, but Lila finally got used to me over the next couple of feedings at the hospital. The nurses knew we wanted to be there to nurse Lila for at least two of her daily feedings, so they wouldn't prepare a bottle of my pumped milk for her at those times. When we brought Lila home, it was great to get to nurse her for all of her feedings rather than only a couple -- it made me feel much closer to her, and I was glad to not have to pump so frequently! Before long, Lila was an expert nurser. But just so she wouldn't forget how to take a bottle, I had someone give her one nearly every day.

Lila's sleep schedule was very erratic that first month, since, like most newborns, she had her days and nights reversed. She slept like a champ during the day -- it was so hard to keep her awake! Everyone wanted to hold her, of course, and she'd fall asleep in one person's arms and stay asleep even as she was being passed on to the next person. At night, her sleep was very shallow, and she'd make so many noises (i.e. coughing, gurgling, wheezing) that we'd get nervous and wake up to make sure she was o.k. Of course we did the same thing with John, but we weren't expecting to do it with our second child! The breathing issues that kept Lila in the NICU turned us into first-time parents all over again. I'll definitely be keeping her in my room for a while longer so I can monitor her.

Lila's appearance changed a lot during her first month. Her face started filling out (the wrinkles on her forehead gradually disappeared), and her hair, eyelashes and eyebrows thickened and darkened. Overall, it seemed like Lila started losing her "newborn" look a lot faster than John (although, to be fair, she was still comfortably wearing the newborn size of clothing at this point)!

Thanksgiving visitors!

Grandma Bonnie and Grandpa Jeff and Aunt Katharine and Uncle Jarey came to visit Lila (and the rest of us, too, I guess) during the week of Thanksgiving. It was the first time that Grandpa and her aunt and uncle had seen her!

Lila with Grandpa.....
Lila with Aunt Katharine.....

Lila with Grandma Bonnie.....

The grandparents with their grandchildren (and yes, these are the best photos out of all the ones we snapped).....

For some reason, I didn't take any photos on the actual day of Thanksgiving, but we had a great day. At 2:00, we all headed over to Uncle Steve and Aunt Ruthanne's house for a gourmet feast.

John had fun playing with Uncle Steve's remote control car, and Lila slept in her car seat most of the afternoon. We did run into some poop issues with the children, though. First, Grandma Bonnie and Grandpa Jeff had to bathe Lila in the sink after a massive poop explosion could not be contained by her diaper. Thankfully, Mommy had had the foresight to pack a change of clothes for her. Mommy had not had the foresight, however, to restock the diaper bag with John's diapers, so when John pooped, he had to stay in that diaper until we got home.

The day after Thanksgiving, my mom hosted a brunch at her house for all of the in-laws (my in-laws and my sister's in-laws, who live in Naperville). I took a bunch of pictures that morning.

Here's John striking a pose in the kitchen.....

And John posing with his grandpa.....

John getting a ride from Katharine's father-in-law, Ed, on the walker belonging to his father, who also came to the brunch.....

Me with Katharine's mother-in-law, Robin.....

Jeff and Ross.....

Katharine and Jarey.....

Jarey's brother, Art, and his new wife, Martha, who had just gotten married a few weeks prior and drove all the way from the Baltimore area for Thanksgiving.....

Ed's father, Ed Sr.....

The beer-drinking folk during the beer tasting that Jarey organized (he brought a whole bunch of beers in his suitcase all the way from Oregon!).....

Grandma Kay holding Lila.....

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Grandma Bonnie, Aunt Katharine and I took John to a gingerbread-making event at Ruth Lake. John got his very own gingerbread house to decorate, and there was no shortage of candy to use. I think the gingerbread man book I had bought for him to read beforehand helped him understand what he was supposed to do a little better.

The rest of the Thanksgiving weekend went by far too quickly. It was wonderful to have so much of our family (on both sides even) in the area at the same time. We wish we all lived closer!