How has so much time gone by between our last blog post? It’s been bugging me.
The last few months have been unusually active and crowded for us. Jenny and I have been busier than ever with our jobs; I spent much of June on the road for business during which Jenny handled the house and kids solo. We recently put our house up for sale, which involved so many weekends of preparing in the first half of the year and now requires us to keep the place clean and presentation ready every day – all while our little ones smear jelly on the walls, drag toys out of boxes, spill milk, drop globs of toothpaste, etc. When we can, we head out to see houses for sale. We haven’t fallen in love with any properties yet. We’re in limbo.
In the quiet times, we cherish those mellow moments as a family, like story time at the end of the day. Zaeda is now in her own toddler bed to match Oliver’s, which means that we could no longer all gather to read on Oliver’s bed without a tussle. The neutral space is the rug in the center of the floor.
Oliver and Zaeda are playing together more and more. Now that Zaeda is talking, they have conversations and arguments – lots of arguments. Toys get thrown. They swap clothes. They hug, wrestle, and pinch one another – giggles, screams, and tears. All day long.
Birthday
Zaeda turned 2 years old at the end of May. We gathered at Old Town Pizza nearby with family. All the attention upset her a little bit, but she is slowly blossoming into a little ham. She enjoys attention. She’s more than happy with the inevitable pink stuff, the princess toys and tiaras.
I’m learning how much little girls are different from little boys. I had no sisters, so my exposure to little girls has been limited. Zaeda screams all the time – sometimes because she’s happy, other times because she’s mad or just bored. It’s quite a scream. She also cares about what she’s wearing more than Oliver ever did . There have been many mornings when the only shoes she’ll wear outside are her shiny white dress shoes that have grown a bit tight on her. (Just now, she came flying out of her bedroom in a flowered hat and diapers saying “Watch mommy!”).
Her hair is whole other thing. She hasn’t yet had a hair cut, so it’s long and curly and easily tangled. Sometimes she lets up put it in pigtails or a pony tail, or at least place a clip so that she can see. But just as often, she’ll tolerate nothing in her hair and she goes out like a wild animal half-blinded by own auburn locks.
Photographer
On weekends we try to get out and see some open houses. When the kids come, this can be challenging. They’ll either run through each house like maniacs or fall asleep in the car so that Jenny and I have to take turns going in. One day we handed Oliver our Camera and he proceeded to take about 100 flash pictures – most of which were self-portraits of the back seat of the car. He also took quite a few pictures of the houses we visited. Some of them were better than the promo pictures the realtors had taken.
Last weekend we went to a field to pick strawberries. You can see the kind of messy dusty fun we had.
I’ve mentioned before, Oliver watches more TV than he should and we try to ration his screen time. It’s easier to do in the summer when we can get outside and visit the park or walk or ride bikes. Last weekend, I took Oliver to his first movie in a theater. We saw Pixar’s Cars 2, which is about as perfect a movie for a 4 year old boy as they make. I never buy soda and popcorn at the movie theater, but I made an exception in this case. He loved it. The only part he struggled with was the theater seats that fold up; he’s so small, his chair kept folding on him.
Oliver Quotes
“Quite” as in “I don’t quite remember”
“My tummy hurt and then the next moment it didn’t”
(and in response to Jenny’s medical assessment question trying to understand Oliver’s mysterious tummy aches – “Oliver, are your poopies different?”)
“My poopies are ALWAYS different.”
Zaeda Quotes
“I’ll be right back”
“Wash (watch) Mommy!”
“Rub my back!”
