Long Awaited Update
I'm sure everyone else who's celebrating a holiday this season has been busy too, so you're probably not missing this post!
The biggest thing going on is that Uncle Robbie is back in the hospital in Denver with Guillain-Barée syndrome. I think that he and his family want to keep it private, so I won't say much beyond that he seems to be improving over the last few days, and we're looking forward to spending time with him, GAK, and cousins before Christmas.
Moving backwards in time... Today Clementine and I went to see her first Nutcracker Ballet. Based on the results of last weekend's Family Christmas Concert, I thought we'd make it through exactly 3 songs, but she sat through the entire thing! Amazing. It was a bit hard for me to go from the San Francisco Ballet to this, but on the other hand Clementine loved it and there were lots of kids in the audience -- even babies! No scowls, no grumpiness, no babyless urban upittiness. So I'd say, not a bad trade.
Yesterday we went for a tree. Not into the mountains, like real mountain people, just to a nursery. Maybe we'll head into the mountains in a year or two. We even managed to decorate and eat pizza, which with 2 little children around is an ENORMOUS accomplishment.
Last weekend we started on our latest round of stomach flu. First Clementine on Friday night and then Calliope on Monday night. >sigh< Clementine was amazingly good-natured about the whole thing, with very little fussing or crying at all. Calliope was a little worse as she couldn't keep *anything* down for 11 hours and she's so little we worried about it. But lickily it cleared up after only 14 hours or so, and in babies these things can last days, which isn't good for anyone.
We were recently back from visiting Ryan's family in Fort Collins for Thanksgiving. I will have to hit them up for photos as we didn't take a single one! Bad, bad parents. In any event, it was a lovely dinner, which Dave and Better hosted with enormous grace and aplomb (and lots of yummy food), which was extraordinary given the 17 they had for dinner! Clementine had fun playing with her cousin Gabriel, though a 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 year old aren't quite able to entertain each other for hours. Still, they had fun. Calliope and Ethan played some too, for about the length of an 11-month-old's attention span, so like 60 seconds or so.
In hindsight, it is funny to remember the night before Thanksgiving, which I would chalk up as one of the 3 worst nights of our parenting lives. Ok, maybe 2 worst. Some friends of Ryan's parents very generously offered to let us stay with them. We really thought we could manage with two rooms, which is what they had in the basement, along with our own bathroom. We've even had fantasies about putting the girls in the same bedroom at home, wouldn't it be nice if they shared a room? So we decided to try putting them together in one of our two rooms in the basement. Of course Calliope woke up at midnight, as usual, and from there is was all downhill. She not only woke Clementine, but scared her, so already we had two screaming children. After that, Clementine couldn't sleep because her ear hurt. Well, we have this stupid Elmo Goes to the Doctor video where Elmo's ear hurts and the doctor makes it better, so now Clementine says her ear hurts all the time. After an hour or so of alternating between crying and fighting about going to bed, I decide I don't even care if her ear actually hurts and thank goodness I packed decongestant. Except... DOH! I only have like a third of a dose left in the bottle. Between 1:30am and 4am it was just sheer torture. Every time Clementine cried she woke Calliope. Then Calliope would cry and I'd nurse her. Then Clementine would get upset because she wanted her mother. Ryan would manage to calm her down for a minute. I'd put Calliope down to help Clementine, and Clementine would roll around in bed whining and fussing and crying and too tired to even talk, poor thing. So she'd wake Calliope, etc. etc. In the rare moments Clementine was resting peacefully Calliope would wake up. Then I'd nurse her and Clementine would get upset, etc. etc. I considered what I could do... Take Calliope to a hotel room? No, Clementine would freak out. Take Clementine? No, Calliope would need to nurse. Put them both in the car and drive home? I seriously considered whether I could pack the car without waking our hosts. But then were the roads safe? Of course it was snowing outside and our hosts, like any reasonable people, had the heat turned down for the night when normal people are snug in their beds, so anytime anyone was out of bed they were instantly cold. Ryan and I each completely lost it one time (luckily not at the same time), but I will save the details for other parents who can swap lost-my-shit stories with us. FINALLY at 5am I dug in desperation through our bathroom stuff to discover that I had more decongestant. (STUPID! This night was so bad that Ryan could use my spacing out the decongestant as grounds for divorce.) So we slept, or at least rested, fitfully until the sun came up. It was one of those nights when I was relieved to see the sun come up so we could at least be tortured in some new, upright way. It was a perfect storm -- strange house which they'd never been to until we got there to go to bed, late to bed which always makes it hard to sleep, real earache (evidently), first day of snow of the season, two rooms, a crib too big to move, exhausted parents. Poor girls! As we got ready to head to Ryan's folks for Thanksgiving, after hours of uttering nothing except pleading with Clementine to be quiet, comforting her, and shushing Calliope, Ryan said to me, with utter sincerity "You kill me and I'll kill you." I nearly took him up on it. Hilarious! Well, I hope it reads that way. It really was funny.
In other news, Calliope is getting her top teeth (that might have been part of the problem too), and has stood up for 4 or 5 seconds at a time now. She is soooo sweet and wonderful right now, it really is baby honeymoon. Bliss. Well except for the sleeping thing, but I can live with that. She wakes at midnight, I nurse her and put her back in her crib, then at 4 and I keep her with us for 2 hours or so and put her back. Now that she goes back to her crib in between, I sleep ok. I haven't weighed her but I'm sure she's gaining weight. She feels so much more solid. Clementine is getting the beginnings of freckles (!) and her vocabulary continues to amaze. She says very precocious things like, "Mom, isn't that adorable?" She also refers to her own fits as freaking out, as in, "Daddy, Daddy, we were at the coffee shop and I freaked out, TOTALLY!" She is perpetually inquisitive and lately we've been talking about all kinds of things, all of which tend to come to either the fact that the earth turns or time passes. For example:
M: Clementine, you have to wear your boots.
C: Why?
M: Because there's snow outside.
C: Why?
M: Because it snowed last night.
C: Why?
M: Because water vapor in the air condensed into drops and froze before it fell?
C: Why?
M: Because it's cold.
C: Why?
M: Because it's winter time.
C: Why?
M: Because the earth is tilted on its axis and right now the part we live on is tilted away from the sun.
C: Why?
M: It just is, ok? Boots!
And there you have it. Clementine has to wear her boots because the earth is tilted. It's astonishing how many things come down to this, or some similar large-scale fact. That's the fun thing about having children, they make you think about the really important things, and about trivial things in a whole new way.
The biggest thing going on is that Uncle Robbie is back in the hospital in Denver with Guillain-Barée syndrome. I think that he and his family want to keep it private, so I won't say much beyond that he seems to be improving over the last few days, and we're looking forward to spending time with him, GAK, and cousins before Christmas.
Moving backwards in time... Today Clementine and I went to see her first Nutcracker Ballet. Based on the results of last weekend's Family Christmas Concert, I thought we'd make it through exactly 3 songs, but she sat through the entire thing! Amazing. It was a bit hard for me to go from the San Francisco Ballet to this, but on the other hand Clementine loved it and there were lots of kids in the audience -- even babies! No scowls, no grumpiness, no babyless urban upittiness. So I'd say, not a bad trade.
Yesterday we went for a tree. Not into the mountains, like real mountain people, just to a nursery. Maybe we'll head into the mountains in a year or two. We even managed to decorate and eat pizza, which with 2 little children around is an ENORMOUS accomplishment.
Last weekend we started on our latest round of stomach flu. First Clementine on Friday night and then Calliope on Monday night. >sigh< Clementine was amazingly good-natured about the whole thing, with very little fussing or crying at all. Calliope was a little worse as she couldn't keep *anything* down for 11 hours and she's so little we worried about it. But lickily it cleared up after only 14 hours or so, and in babies these things can last days, which isn't good for anyone.
We were recently back from visiting Ryan's family in Fort Collins for Thanksgiving. I will have to hit them up for photos as we didn't take a single one! Bad, bad parents. In any event, it was a lovely dinner, which Dave and Better hosted with enormous grace and aplomb (and lots of yummy food), which was extraordinary given the 17 they had for dinner! Clementine had fun playing with her cousin Gabriel, though a 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 year old aren't quite able to entertain each other for hours. Still, they had fun. Calliope and Ethan played some too, for about the length of an 11-month-old's attention span, so like 60 seconds or so.
In hindsight, it is funny to remember the night before Thanksgiving, which I would chalk up as one of the 3 worst nights of our parenting lives. Ok, maybe 2 worst. Some friends of Ryan's parents very generously offered to let us stay with them. We really thought we could manage with two rooms, which is what they had in the basement, along with our own bathroom. We've even had fantasies about putting the girls in the same bedroom at home, wouldn't it be nice if they shared a room? So we decided to try putting them together in one of our two rooms in the basement. Of course Calliope woke up at midnight, as usual, and from there is was all downhill. She not only woke Clementine, but scared her, so already we had two screaming children. After that, Clementine couldn't sleep because her ear hurt. Well, we have this stupid Elmo Goes to the Doctor video where Elmo's ear hurts and the doctor makes it better, so now Clementine says her ear hurts all the time. After an hour or so of alternating between crying and fighting about going to bed, I decide I don't even care if her ear actually hurts and thank goodness I packed decongestant. Except... DOH! I only have like a third of a dose left in the bottle. Between 1:30am and 4am it was just sheer torture. Every time Clementine cried she woke Calliope. Then Calliope would cry and I'd nurse her. Then Clementine would get upset because she wanted her mother. Ryan would manage to calm her down for a minute. I'd put Calliope down to help Clementine, and Clementine would roll around in bed whining and fussing and crying and too tired to even talk, poor thing. So she'd wake Calliope, etc. etc. In the rare moments Clementine was resting peacefully Calliope would wake up. Then I'd nurse her and Clementine would get upset, etc. etc. I considered what I could do... Take Calliope to a hotel room? No, Clementine would freak out. Take Clementine? No, Calliope would need to nurse. Put them both in the car and drive home? I seriously considered whether I could pack the car without waking our hosts. But then were the roads safe? Of course it was snowing outside and our hosts, like any reasonable people, had the heat turned down for the night when normal people are snug in their beds, so anytime anyone was out of bed they were instantly cold. Ryan and I each completely lost it one time (luckily not at the same time), but I will save the details for other parents who can swap lost-my-shit stories with us. FINALLY at 5am I dug in desperation through our bathroom stuff to discover that I had more decongestant. (STUPID! This night was so bad that Ryan could use my spacing out the decongestant as grounds for divorce.) So we slept, or at least rested, fitfully until the sun came up. It was one of those nights when I was relieved to see the sun come up so we could at least be tortured in some new, upright way. It was a perfect storm -- strange house which they'd never been to until we got there to go to bed, late to bed which always makes it hard to sleep, real earache (evidently), first day of snow of the season, two rooms, a crib too big to move, exhausted parents. Poor girls! As we got ready to head to Ryan's folks for Thanksgiving, after hours of uttering nothing except pleading with Clementine to be quiet, comforting her, and shushing Calliope, Ryan said to me, with utter sincerity "You kill me and I'll kill you." I nearly took him up on it. Hilarious! Well, I hope it reads that way. It really was funny.
In other news, Calliope is getting her top teeth (that might have been part of the problem too), and has stood up for 4 or 5 seconds at a time now. She is soooo sweet and wonderful right now, it really is baby honeymoon. Bliss. Well except for the sleeping thing, but I can live with that. She wakes at midnight, I nurse her and put her back in her crib, then at 4 and I keep her with us for 2 hours or so and put her back. Now that she goes back to her crib in between, I sleep ok. I haven't weighed her but I'm sure she's gaining weight. She feels so much more solid. Clementine is getting the beginnings of freckles (!) and her vocabulary continues to amaze. She says very precocious things like, "Mom, isn't that adorable?" She also refers to her own fits as freaking out, as in, "Daddy, Daddy, we were at the coffee shop and I freaked out, TOTALLY!" She is perpetually inquisitive and lately we've been talking about all kinds of things, all of which tend to come to either the fact that the earth turns or time passes. For example:
M: Clementine, you have to wear your boots.
C: Why?
M: Because there's snow outside.
C: Why?
M: Because it snowed last night.
C: Why?
M: Because water vapor in the air condensed into drops and froze before it fell?
C: Why?
M: Because it's cold.
C: Why?
M: Because it's winter time.
C: Why?
M: Because the earth is tilted on its axis and right now the part we live on is tilted away from the sun.
C: Why?
M: It just is, ok? Boots!
And there you have it. Clementine has to wear her boots because the earth is tilted. It's astonishing how many things come down to this, or some similar large-scale fact. That's the fun thing about having children, they make you think about the really important things, and about trivial things in a whole new way.
