RJ and Logan go to a wedding

On October 23, we headed down to Turlock for Krishawn and Mike's Wedding. It's not RJ's first wedding, nor our first wedding with a nursing baby, since RJ stood up in Amy and Luke's wedding at 1.5 months, but this was the first wedding we've been to since then, and that RJ will remember, AND with two kids in tow when we didn't have an on-site babysitter (like we did for my sister's wedding).

There are both advantages and disadvantages to taking children to a wedding, and this wedding in particular.

Advantages:
1.) We got to talk about weddings and what it means to be married. In the week prior, I showed RJ pictures from Lance and my wedding, which I think was neat for him to see.
2.) Exposure to other cultures (Mike is Assyrian).
3.) A place to practice social skills and manners.
4.) RJ got to see his former teachers again and see them in a different venue all dressed up.
5.) The kids were incredibly cute all dressed up.
6.) RJ loves dancing.

Disadvantages:

1.) Lance and I did not get to party all night long because we had the kids to consider.
2.) Wedding schedules are not usually conducive to naps/kid dinner times/bedtimes, so we were constantly worried about a cranky RJ outburst/tantrum ruining the event for others.
3.) A place to practice social skills and manners means that the child doesn't necessarily HAVE these skills yet and that others might have to ignore/adjust to those normal child behaviors that aren't necessarily appropriate at a fancy event.
4.) Worrying that your kid will have sticky hands when touching the much beloved bride that you can't keep him away from!

It really depends on the goal of going to the wedding for the parents. Clearly if our goal was to have a romantic/partying evening at our friends' wedding, then taking the kids was a mistake. However, in this case, while I'd love to think that we'd be friends with Krishawn and Mike even without RJ, he really was how I got to spend time with Krishawn in the first place, and subsequently got to know and love her! She has known and loved him since he was 10 weeks old, so given that we were invited, it was only fitting that he should be there when she got married and the goal was a social learning experience for him and to get the kids all dressed up cute!

Both kids did really well, so I think we made the right decision in taking them and then later, keeping them there rather than using the standby babysitter. They did reasonably well keeping quiet during the ceremony - Lance took them outside for the last 10-15 minutes, since they were getting restless and we were a little nervous about them potentially making noise.

We had some time between the ceremony and the reception, so we stopped at Target to buy the kids' Halloween costumes. Since we were a bit overdressed for Target -- "Is that a guy in a suit? In the dollar section?", we moved onto Red Robin with Erika, Rich, and Ethan to have a snack (and dinner for the kids since it was around their normal dinner time). RJ had a major tantrum at Red Robin because he didn't want to leave the race car game in the lobby, but we were able to finally get him calm to eat. Then, since we still had some time to kill, we took the kids to see the shark tank at a nearby pet store at Rich's suggestion. RJ enjoyed running all over the store. Then both kids fell asleep during the 10 minute car ride to the reception. Logan was a rock star and stayed asleep in his car seat just about until dinner was served. RJ of course, got up.

At the reception, RJ was really good for a three year old having a long, off-schedule day. He definitely had a few toddler moments but nothing too bad. But we let him run off some steam by running laps around the sitting room area in the hall and that helped a lot. Kasie and Melody were also VERY helpful and accommodating to him when he basically monopolized their time by standing between them talking, and stroking the material on their pretty dresses (yeah, I know we'll have to get him to stop feeling up women at some point). He also threw a fit at the end because he wanted to dance and we thought he had hit his limit because he ran off to the dance floor when we asked him to stay with us.

I have to say that the highlights were definitely getting to see RJ see Krishawn. We went over to sneak a peak closer to the head table before things really got going, and Krishawn saw us and gestured us to come on up! RJ was thrilled and totally deserved the moment because he was REALLY good about staying with me when I told him that he couldn't just go running up there! Then later, he got to dance with her, which thrilled him even more! The other highlight was discovering that RJ can break dance. We got it on video, but honestly, the video doesn't even scratch the surface of his moves!



It was a fantastic wedding with great food and great people and I was really happy that we got to see Krishawn as much as we did, especially since it was a huge wedding with lots of family and family friends.

Logan at 9 months

We've got a curious troublemaker on our hands.

Stats
Weight: 20.5 lbs
Height: 29 inches (length)
Size: 18 mos.
Hair: Light Brown
Eyes: Hazel - they are mostly blue sometimes a little green, with gold flecks near the iris
Teeth: 2 - bottom front (8/14/10, 8/25/10)
Vocalizations: Squeals, coos, grunts, and laughs/giggles. "goo" "buhbuhbuh", raspberries, "umm", "oak", "gah", "dadadadadada", "t", "th", "sssss",
Words (to count as a word, Logan has to say something and show that he knows what the object is): "boob". Yes, as of 10-21-10, Logan followed in his brother's footsteps with the first word of "boob". In what seems like a case of deja vu, after nursing, Logan reached out, grabbed one, and said, "boob", then laughed.
Motor Development: Logan started crawling consistently just as he turned 8 months old. Now he's speedy and into everything. One of his favorite things is to chase RJ around the house. RJ likes this (sometimes) and the chorus of giggles is outstanding! Logan is also solidly in that stage where he will pull up on EVERYTHING, including things that will not hold his weight, like laundry baskets, which means that if you blink, he's fallen. We officially have a creeper too - he will move himself along the couch or any other thing that he is holding onto. Just a few days ago, he moved along our theater seats and then turned to hold onto my knee and then the couch. In terms of fine motor development, Logan has mastered the pincer grasp, which also means that I need to vacuum and sweep more because he will find every last little tiny piece of crap on the floor. He likes to hang out on the floor in the kitchen when I'm making dinner and every time I drop some peel or piece of vegetable (yes, I am a very messy cook), he finds it. Sometimes I have to fish whatever it is out of his mouth too if I didn't notice it fall in the first place. Now that he's mobile, we set up RJ's old "Fun Zone" for Logan, but (big surprise) he'd rather be crawling around getting into the cat food or whatever other fun things are lying on the floor awaiting him.

Cognitive/Perceptual Development: Object permanence has been achieved! He will look under blankets for toys that I have "hidden" on him. He is also likely to get pissed when a toy (usually one of RJ's that he's managed to grab when RJ wasn't looking) gets taken away from him (even if replaced with a baby toy). He has also started to pay attention to how toys work and will imitate some of the things RJ does. It's no surprise that he will make cars roll! Peek-a-boo and it's variations are a common game that we play and enjoy too. Logan knows his name and will look when you call him. His receptive language or receptive non-verbal communication is growing by the day since he can follow simple commands like "come over here" (although that doesn't mean that he always DOES, but he is capable!). I think he's starting to connect our names to our faces because he sometimes will look at RJ when I ask "Where's RJ?" and look at me when I ask "Where's Momma?". I guess it's time to see if we can teach him a few signs and see what happens. He is a curious little creature and really investigates everything around him. I think that he is particularly interested in the sounds that different objects make because he has a distinct preference for the percussion instruments (and tests out the sounds that other toys make by banging and/or crumpling/squishing). While most babies bang their toys around to a certain degree, he seems to be more systematic about testing the different sounds out by banging different things in different ways than what I've typically seen in 9 month old babies. Maybe he'll be my musical child!




Relationships/Personality: Still likes to instigate trouble with his brother and enjoys playing with other kids, both big and small like him. He really wants to do big boy things and watches RJ all the time. He also starts yelling when RJ does, which is not my favorite thing, but it is a little cute.

He enjoys getting hugs and kisses (as long as they're not TOO tight) from RJ and us and he does not like being put in the Fun Zone alone, even if I'm across the room. However, he's fine if I stick RJ in there with him (which RJ chooses to do voluntarily sometimes). This is a good sign that separation anxiety is in full swing. He tends to get upset when he sees me leave the room too - unless he is engaged in either a.) mischief or b.) playing with RJ.

Eating: Most of Logan's nutrition still comes in the form of breast milk, which is still the healthiest thing for him. He nurses pretty frequently during the day when we're home (usually) at 6am, 9:30/10am, 11:30/12, 1:30/2, 3:30/4, 5:30, 8:30/9. However, when we're out, we tend to nurse less depending on what's going on and he's fine with it. The big change is that we cut out the middle-of-the-night nursing just before he was 8 months old, because he didn't need the extra nourishment and I definitely needed more uninterrupted sleep. He still won't take a bottle of breast milk (okay he did ONCE for Erika), but he will take a few sips of breast milk out of a sippy cup. We're going to work on that more so that he figures out that he can get liquids from sources other than the breast. We're in a good routine for his solid meals (approximately 8:30, 12:30, 6:30), where he eats about 3-4 oz. at a time. He seems to enjoy his food and generally wants to make a mess of himself with it too! Here's what he's eaten so far (in the order he's tried them) avocados, rice cereal, sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, zucchini, bananas, pears, butternut squash, yellow summer squash, various yellow and green summer squashes and pattypan, potatoes, applesauce, swiss chard, sweet corn, green beans, apple/blueberry, baby oatmeal, prunes, cantaloupe, turkey, peaches, strawberries, New Zealand spinach, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, yogurt, random CSA melon, turkey vegetable, beef vegetable, or chicken vegetable jarred baby food (which introduced barley and onion), beef, tomatoes, tomato sauce, baby multi-grain cereal, eggs, chicken, puffs, spaghetti squash, mango, turkey noodle soup puree (chicken broth, ground turkey, carrots, leeks, potatoes, parsley), broccoli. I've also started giving him little tiny pieces of normal food, so long as it doesn't have too much salt or sugar in it. He has enjoyed steak, fish, and chicken, as well as pieces of some of the fruits and veggies that I normally puree. Most of his food is pureed, but I've been leaving some small chunks and he'll keep trying whatever the rest of us are eating. Since he doesn't seem to have any allergies, we will just keep introducing food when the opportunity arises.

Sleep: We have made some progress in that Logan doesn't nurse to sleep in the middle of the night anymore. He will nurse and usually fall asleep sometime between 8:30 and 9:30 and when he wakes up after that point, Lance goes in to soothe him back to sleep. Sometimes he can get Logan back into his crib (okay, still a pack n play since the stupid crib hasn't arrived yet), but lately by around midnight, Logan and Daddy are in the guest bed together until he wakes between 5 and 6 to nurse (then he'll sleep with me until about 7:30). This month we are going to see if moving up his bedtime helps the night waking. We're also going to work on getting him to sleep in his crib for the second half of the night too.


We love our crazy Logan. He's such an easy going baby! I can't believe he'll be a whole year old in 3 months! It's going soooo fast!

Mom and Randy's Visit

At the end of September, my mom and Randy came to visit us for a week. We covered a lot of ground as you will see by taking a look at this map that I made to show where we went!

View Mom and Randy's Visit September 2010 in a larger map

On Saturday Sept 25, after RJ's last swim lesson and lunch at Casa Mexico in Livermore, we headed to the Dragon Boat Races on Treasure Island and then continued over the Bay Bridge to Chinatown for a little shopping and some Thai (yes, I realize that we should've gotten Chinese food, but we found a Thai restaurant that looked good, so we went with it!)

Then on my birthday, we went to the Robert Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve. I had read about some mazes that we could hike to. Unfortunately, it was already pretty hot and we seemed to take a wrong turn despite having a map. In any case, we had a nice, if more strenuous than planned afternoon hike. We then stopped at Retzlaff Vineyards for a wine tasting. I like Retzlaff, because they are certified organic winemakers, and their wine is very yummy, particularly their Cabernet port. I am also a huge fan of seeing my mother drunk. That totally made my birthday, especially since it is an extremely rare occurrence. I was pretty tipsy myself too since I haven't drank much in the last few years thanks to being pregnant, then nursing, then pregnant, then nursing again. We decided that dinner was a good idea to absorb the alcohol and headed to Zephyr Bar and Grill in Livermore. We followed dinner with frozen yogurt at Chilaberries and then headed home.


We had a low key Monday, staying home, with only an outing to Costco.

Then on Tuesday we did a little tour of the central valley, having Ghiradelli Sundaes for our morning snack in Lathrop, followed by a trip to a nearby playground, then a drive up to Toys R Us and a late lunch at In-N-Out Burger in Modesto. Then we stopped in Manteca on the way home to the Bass Pro Shop, where Mom and Randy were taking pictures and sending texts to jealous people back in Buffalo who are having a difficult time getting a Bass Pro Shop built there.

On Wednesday, I had a 2nd interview at West Valley College (no I didn't end up getting the job), so we decided to head into San Jose to go to Happy Hollow with the boys to get me closer. Then after lunch, Mom, Randy, RJ, and Logan stayed there while I drove to Saratoga for my interview and then came back to meet them. As always, RJ loved Happy Hollow and we even got to walk through the Japanese Friendship Garden on the way back to the car, which was really pretty. We then headed up to Half Moon Bay to make sure that Randy could see the Pacific Ocean (we stopped briefly at the foggy State Beach), and then met Lance for a seafood dinner at the Flying Fish Grill.

Thursday was another low-key day where we went to the Tracy Outlets and had lunch at Strings in town.

On Mom and Randy's last day, we drove to DreamWorks to have lunch with Lance at work and then went to the Shoreline Aquatic Park, which is right on the bay, stopped at Rick's Ice Cream in Palo Alto (Mom LOVES ice cream and loves giving RJ ice cream), and then went back up the pennisula for dinner at Sirayvah Organic Thai before dropping them off at the airport.
It was a great visit. We can't wait to see them again!

September 2010 - Pictures

Here are our pictures from September prior to our end of the month visitors.

To sum up the month we started it off at the Scottish Games, where RJ really enjoyed watching the Scottish dancers. He also loved watching Erika and Rich volunteer. Ethan even had his own staff onesie and kilt!


The rest of the month completed the transportation theme and we got RJ in parent-child swim lessons, which could've been better, but they were a start. Most of this set includes pictures of play dates and co-ops and the kids playing outside.

August 2010 Photos

Here are our photos from August. We mostly focused on the Transportation Theme for RJ, so there are lots of pictures of him doing a variety of activities and exploring transportation, including a whole bunch of him exploring public transportation in San Francisco.


We also have some cute pictures from Daisy's Birthday Party at Chuck E. Cheese.


And some cute pictures of Logan and our co-ops and play dates.

Note: in this collection you will find several random pictures of our neighborhood or the inside of our stroller - these are RJ's contribution from his tourist game during our transportation theme.

RJ Goes to the Petaluma Speedway

As part of my at-home thematic curriculum, we took RJ to the dirt track at the Petaluma Speedway.  I wrote about it on my curriculum blog, Momma, Ph.D.:Applying Child Development Principles At Home.


In general we had a fun day that Saturday after getting a slow start to Petaluma (Honda dealer took forever to service my car).  We ended up finding their farmer's market, which had Pony Rides for RJ!

Then we had sushi at Gohan right before heading to the races.  RJ enjoyed his carburator roll (Crispy tempura prawns and cucumber, with tobiko and snow crab salad on the top for those who are interested).  I love that the sushi restaurant even fit my transportation theme!

I think my favorite part of the races was seeing Logan with his earplugs.  He looked liked he had Shrek ears!

Logan at 7 months

Logan is becoming more and more mobile and vocal by the day. He's going to be a handful really soon!

Stats
Weight:19 lbs. 14 oz. (75th percentile)
Height:29 inches (above the 95th percentile)
Size: 12 months (some pajamas and t-shirts are 18 mos.)
Hair: Light Brown
Eyes: Blue
Teeth: 2 - bottom front (8/14/10, 8/25/10)
Vocalizations: Squeals, coos, grunts, and laughs/giggles. "goo" "buhbuhbuh", raspberries, "umm", "oak", "gah"

Motor Development: Not moving the way he wants to is the source of approximately 90% of Logan's frustration.  These days, he is working on forward locomotion.  He can turn 360 degrees by scooting on his butt and when on his tummy.  He can also scoot forward on his butt, which is pretty inefficient, but good enough to get him to the toys that RJ thought he couldn't reach.  He can also launch himself forwards into a crawling position from sitting.  Then he rocks back and forth on his hands and knees.  He can sort of army crawl backwards, but it's when he's trying to go forward, so he gets frustrated because he gets farther away from what he wants.  Logan can be easily calmed by just putting him into a standing position - he LOVES "dancing" and becomes a super crazy maniac baby in the jumperoo.  With the way he keeps practicing, I think forward motion via crawling will occur any day now.  He just has to figure out how to move his arms and legs!

Cognitive/Perceptual Development: Logan seems to be very into sensory experiences lately.  He LOVES water running over his hands and he likes seeing how his food feels in his hands, testing out its squishy-ness. I'm convinced that he can tell the difference between RJ toys and Logan toys because he gets a devilish look on his face when he goes after one of the RJ toys.   He also seems to have an understanding of object permanence given that he tries to move my hands when we play peek-a-boo!

Relationships: Logan's mommy-favoritism has gotten even stronger.  When he gets tired at the end of the day, only mommy will do.  He also really enjoys being around other children, especially RJ.  When he's fussing because I put him down to make dinner, RJ does a good job at calming him down, usually by playing peek-a-boo or just talking to him .  Hearing Logan and RJ laughing together is the best sound in the world.  Logan is also quite the trouble-maker already, engaging in such egregious infractions such as drooling on RJ, grabbing RJ's toys (which sometimes makes RJ laugh and sometimes cry), splashing RJ in the tub, and then after each infraction, laughing as though he's done the most hilarious thing ever.  My personal favorite was when Logan kept touching (and sliming) RJ's arm when they were sitting in the car cart at the grocery store.  Something tells me this is not the end of this!  Logan also loves watching RJ's friends and his friends' siblings, but his closest friend is Ethan, who is just 4 months older than him.  Ethan and Logan like to pass toys back and forth (which is like the baby version of the spit shake!)

Eating: Breast milk is still his primary source of nutrition (he usually nurses at 6am, 9:30/10am, 11:30/12, 1:30/2, 3:30/4, 5:30, 8:30/9, and once overnight (we cut him off from feeding more than once overnight and will soon cut it out entirely).  We're up to three meals of baby food a day (8:30, 12:30, 6:30).  He eats 1-2 oz. at a time.  He might eat more if he wasn't nursing so much, but at this point, I'm trying to get him nursing a bunch during the day so he doesn't want to at night.  We'll cut down a bit once he sleeps through the night.  So far, Logan's favorites seem to be yellow squash, sweet potatoes, and fruits.  Here's what he's eaten so far (in the order he's tried them) avocados, rice cereal, sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, zucchini, bananas, pears, butternut squash, yellow summer squash, various yellow and green summer squashes and pattypan, potatoes, applesauce, swiss chard, sweet corn, green beans, apple/blueberry, baby oatmeal, prunes, cantaloupe, turkey, peaches, strawberries.  I also added a little unsalted butter to carrots one day (it is supposed to make the beta carotene more easily absorbed), but he was crazy fussy that night, so I haven't tried that again, thinking that the dairy might have been hard to digest. Next on tap are trying butter again to see if it was a coincidence, yogurt, pinto beans, eggs, and whatever fun veggies/fruits come our way in the CSA bin.

Sleep: Logan's sleep has improved, but we're still working toward going all night, and there are quite a few nights of setbacks still.  He can sleep from when I put him down (in his own bed - which is currently the pack and play until our new crib comes home with daddy this week) after nursing at 9:30 until around 1 or 2.  Then we nurse and he can sleep until 6 or so when I nurse him again and he might go back to sleep until 7:30.  He sometimes wakes up more often, but if it's before 1, we get him to sleep without nursing - rocking and reciting "Goodnight Moon" seems to work for me.  I'm lucky that I have memorized it since it was RJ's naptime story, so I can recite it while rocking.  Hopefully someday we'll be able to put him in the crib and just read and he'll go down, but we're trying to make the sleep association now.

Logan is one crazy baby, who seems to be an easier teether than his brother.  Now if only he could just sleep all night!

Picture Albums

April

RJ's First Roller Coaster Ride

Logan & Dylan Playing

May

Boys Chillin' on the Couch

June

RJ & the Madelines (What a great band name!)

At the Livermore Rodeo Parade

July

Cute Boys

RJ's Birthday Party

A week after RJ's birthday, we threw him a birthday party. While I can't speak for all the guests, everyone appeared to be having a good time! The party was of course Lightning McQueen themed, since our lives revolve around Lightning and co. As guests arrived, the children took turns with the Power Wheels Lightning, who was a clear star of the party, and bounced in the bounce house (which of course featured a race car on top). Then, the activity I had planned was making plaster cars or trucks. However, this turned out to be a little complicated for 3 year olds, so I ended up making the cars and the kids just painted them. This ended up working out okay, but I wish I had made the cars and trucks ahead of time since they kept crumbling, I suspect due to the heat that day. I don't think the kids cared though. Maybe next year I can think of an activity that doesn't involve making a mess with non-washable paint (last year's party was painting t-shirts).

Then we made our own personal pizzas on pre-baked pizza dough. (I thankfully have a dough setting on my bread maker, which allowed me to be making dough when doing other things to get ready for the party!

After dinner, RJ got a little help from his friends opening presents. Thank you to everyone - RJ has been enjoying all his new things!

My favorite part of his party was the Lightning McQueen cake. I am still really proud of it and I'm looking for an excuse to make other cakes, because once I got the technique down, it was fun to make and even though it's bragging, it came out good both presentation and taste-wise.

As his guests left, a bonus was that we got to bounce for another hour because the bounce house rental company hadn't come to pick up the it up yet!

All the pictures link to the Birthday Party Album, but as you'll see, we didn't take a whole lot of pictures. If you have any pictures from the party, please send them our way!

RJ and Logan go to the farm

For those who remember the Little Debbie purge of '02 -- such deleteriously delicious ingredients as hydrogenated oils and high-fructose corn syrup were taboo in the DeLancey household long before the State of California got on board (California Becomes 1st State to Enact Trans Fat Ban prohibiting restaurants starting January 1, 2010 from using oil, shortening, and margarine containing artificial trans fats).

We've tried to choose organic foods ever since RJ was born, culminating with taking RJ to Chez Panisse for his second birthday last year turning us a little more toward the locally grown trend. After reading the latest Michael Pollan treatise "In Defense of Food" recently we looked around for a CSA ("Community Supported Agriculture") to join.

Upon a recommendation of another family we know in our neighborhood, we took RJ and Logan to visit Farmer Bob at Fresh Edibles.

Farmer Bob showed us around his fields in search of something RJ wouldn't eat.  He failed in that endeavor but succeeded in winning us over.  He pulled a beet up out of the ground, cut it open and let RJ dig in.  Then we proceeded to sample raw corn right off the stock,  beets ripped from the ground, lemon cucumber lifted, strawberries sampled, rainbow carrots colored red to RJ's specification, and raspberries that were refreshing.

Our first delivery arrived this past Thursday July 22nd.

At around $16.75/week we got a sampling of bell peppers, cabbage, tomatoes, corn, onions, garlic, tarragon, beets, squash, lemon cucumbers, carrots, and lettuce.  We also signed up for the fresh egg service since RJ enjoyed feeding the chickens

RJ feeding the chickens a beet