January in Pictures

After returning from our Winter Adventures, we settled back into our normal routine and in addition to all the preparation and planning for Logan's First Birthday, we also managed to do some interesting things close to home.

The kids have been enjoying playing with their Christmas Gifts of course.

Our first weekend back in town, we took RJ to the Hiller Aviation Museum since it was Open Cockpit Day. RJ got to sit in some cockpits and pretend to fly airplanes, which he absolutely LOVED. He loved the simulators that they have there as well. RJ and I should never try to fly a helicopter together though. We kept crashing.


The next weekend RJ and Hayden had a great outdoor play date. We had been out a few times in the snow in Buffalo, and January has been very rainy here, so I hadn't been getting outside with the boys as much as we were used to. It was great to get outside and active. Plus, RJ enjoyed having Hayden to run around with since Logan can't really keep up yet.

Then of course, we had Logan's Birthday Party and AFC Championship Weekend (Go Steelers!).

And we ended the month with getting RJ involved in his first volunteer experience. We all went and helped clean up the trails at Muir Woods for a morning. Our group was responsible for flossing deck, which meant that we poked all the mud, needles, and leaves out from between the planks of wood that made up the bridges and wooden walkways through the National Monument. We had to get up really early to get there by 8:30am, but it was well worth it. The volunteering started out a little rough because RJ approaches anything new with obstinateness. But once given a choice to sweep or use the dust pan (he wanted to sweep and the broom was unavailable initially), he warmed up to the idea and quickly switched over to the dust pan (the tool originally intended for him) and stuck with it for the next few HOURS. He quite happily scooped up piles of the flossed organic matter and plopped it in bags (they use it for mulch in other areas). He would hold the dustpan for sweepers or just pick up piles left by them. Either way, he was quite helpful and I would argue an indispensable part of the team. He was really proud of himself for being a good volunteer too. Logan also helped by riding in the Ergo, happily, the whole time. At break time, I nursed him and let him run around a little, but otherwise, he bopped around with me, looking at all the trees and then after break, he fell asleep on my back.

Since we were already in Marin county, we took the kids to the Bay Area Discovery Museum in the afternoon. We changed out of our dirty clothes and moved on to the important task of playing. The kids loved it and so we converted our admission fees to a membership. Now we can go to it whenever we want and get deep discounts at other museums (even across the country). Here, RJ and Daddy play with sharks that RJ named Bruce, Stew, and Dinner.
And Logan is getting to the age where he can join in the fun too!

It was quite a busy month! As always, click on the pictures to see the whole albums.

Nighttime Stories: Cat In the Hat Meets Lewis and Clark

It's no big secret that our children are difficult sleepers and that we, as parents have some pretty extravagant nighttime routines to adhere to in order to coddle the children to sleep.  RJ's evening routine is currently:

• Dinner
• Play (if he doesn't dawdle through dinner)
• Clean Up Time
• Bath
• Watch an episode of something while I'm nursing Logan to sleep
• Daddy (usually) reads 1 book
• Daddy makes up a story
• RJ makes up a story
• Hugs and Kisses Goodnight
• Make a tent with his sheet
• He finally lets us leave the room and goes to sleep.  He actually believes that Daddy sleeps right outside his door with Boca, and well, we really haven't done anything to make him believe otherwise because the routine is already too long and we don't want him dragging it out even longer.

I'm not really sure how this whole "making up a story" thing started, because once Logan came around, Lance has almost exclusively handled RJ's nighttime story as I have been busy nursing Logan and otherwise trying to get Logan to sleep.  It is kind of cute and sure beats having to read the same book over and over and over again, like many a preschooler requests.  It's also good that RJ spins tales too.  I like that it's a creative outlet and a way to process the day before bed.

Lance is pretty damned creative in his story telling.  After all, he has to be in order to teach RJ something and meet his demands for a "story about___________ ".

Tonight's story was particularly inventive and carries some themes (although not really the facts) of American History.  To summarize:

The Cat in the Hat lived in London, but he was unhappy because the government didn't let him drink juice or play on Sundays so he, along with Thing 1 and Thing 2 and some others, got on a boat with Christopher Columbus and sailed to America in a big brown wooden boat with sails.  When they got to America, they built houses.  Shortly after, they met Lightning McQueen (because most of the made-up stories HAVE to feature that damned red race car).  Lightning was in cahoots with Lewis and Clark, so they all traveled West in order to make a map of all the mountains and rivers so they knew where to build roads.  Then they all went home and went to bed.  The End.  

When I have to make up the story, I just rehash the day substituting in Lightning and Lightning's little brother "Thunder" for RJ and Logan.  Apparently I need to step up my game when Lance isn't around for bedtime!

DeLancey Family Winter Travels Volume IV: Winter Activities Edition

We were in Buffalo. So, we played in the snow.

We went Ice Skating with Josh and Zach.

We went sledding down a hill a little too big for RJ at Chestnut Ridge. He was not a fan of sledding there, but Luke and my Mom had fun (and so did Lance, Amy, and I).
We went skiing at Holiday Valley. When RJ got carsick 5 minutes from the resort, we really did not have high hopes for him skiing, but he perked up after a snack and ended up LOVING it. We had to carry him in kicking and screaming to eat lunch. He especially loved the magic carpet. He also tried the tow rope lift later in the day, but had a harder time with that. He loved to go down the hill, but he could not make the "pizza" to stop himself.
Then we found a sledding hill more his speed at Westwood Park. Even Logan went down!
Then the adults played a rousing game of Asshole the night before Amy and Luke had to go home. The next morning, RJ laid on the guilt pretty thick too. "Aunt Amy, why can't someone ELSE teach your kids?"
And on New Years Day, we picked up Grandpa and headed to the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, which was great for everyone!

DeLancey Family Winter Travels Volume III: Christmas Celebrations

Christmas Celebrations in Buffalo, In Pictures.

Dinner and Gifts with Dad/Grandpa





Wiglia Dinner with the Ciesielski's



Christmas Morning at Mom/Grammie's


Christmas Dinner with the Hoelzl's

Logan's First Birthday Party

To celebrate Logan's Birthday, we threw a Yellow Submarine/ Ocean-themed party for him. His bedroom is ocean themed (or at least it's supposed to be - I have all my Yellow Submarine characters in there and put all the other assorted Ocean stuffed animals and such in there, but we haven't really painted or decorated). My baby shower thrown by my Child Development Center staff was Yellow Submarine themed because they knew I loved the Beatles and was thinking about having the Yellow Submarine nursery.

I got it stuck in my head that I needed to make a Yellow Submarine cake. Since RJ's First Birthday I have upped my game quite a bit. RJ's first birthday cake was a rectangle from a box (an organic mix, but a mix all the same). RJ's second birthday was a homemade monkey and his third birthday was a homemade Lightning McQueen made from a mold. However, the Yellow Submarine cake is a grand opus of a cake being 100% from scratch and free handed. There was no mold, only me and a bunch of various sized rectangles and circles of devil's food and starlight yellow cake (Betty Crocker recipes) glued together by dark orange chocolate fudge filling (that I made without a recipe). The frosting was buttercream, and I credit Wilton with the recipe to make a nice, smooth, stiff, but not too stiff frosting. Logan's smoosh cake was supposed to be an octopus, sticking with the theme. I think I should've done a side view though - it just looks like a turquoise sun.


And I decided that it was a good idea to make individual chicken pot pies for dinner.

I'm not quite sure why I can't just order pizzas. It would be so much easier, but I like to feed people good food and I like to make it.

However, we made one big mistake in throwing this party. We forgot to take pictures of LOGAN. We took a few of the food, and a couple of blurry ones of him opening gifts, but with taking video, we managed to forget to take stills. Poor second kid. We have video footage a plenty, but we have a backlog (if you'd like video from the last couple of years, bug Lance to find and put the firewire card back in the computer).

Logan did have a great time though - he started really walking across rooms the day before the party, and so he was quite happy getting to show off his new skill of toddling around the house to everyone!

Also, as per tradition from my side of the family, before Logan devoured his cake, we put a rosary, a shot glass, a dollar bill, and my engagement ring in front of him on the high chair tray to see what he would grab first (the "love" symbol started with RJ - who had a heart necklace, which he chose, in his lineup). Like his Momma, Logan went right for the shot glass. Daddy was pretty happy too, since it was a Steeler's shotglass and Logan's birthday (the day after the party) was the day of their AFC championship win.

We hope that everyone else had as good a time as we did at Logan's first birthday party! Thank you to those who came! Logan has been enjoying all his gifts and loved having everyone over! Click here to see the rest of the few pictures we took.

Logan is 1!!

Logan is a toddler now!

Stats

Weight: 21 lbs. 4 oz. (25th percentile)
Height: 31 3/4 inches (90th percentile)
Head Circumference: 47cm (70th percentile)

As you can see, Logan has stretched out quite a bit (going down from the 95th percentile to the 25th while maintaining his high-percentile height). He has lost that big 'ole round behemoth baby look and now his body type is much like RJ's was at the one year mark. He hasn't lost any weight, just plateaued in his gain, which breastfed babies tend to do in the second half of their first year. If he's anything like RJ, he'll creep back up to about the 50th percentile in weight as he builds toddler muscle, while staying at the 90th for height. He is a very healthy one year old!

Motor Development:
We have a walker! Logan took his first steps on December 15, got up to about 8 steps later in December, and then took off across the house the day of his First Birthday Party (January 22, 2011), one day before his actual birthday! He loves walking and gets a big goofy grin on his face when he's toddling along. He is also a climber and enjoys scaling the stairs.

In terms of fine motor development, he excels at grasping tiny objects and putting them in his mouth. Typically these are tiny bites of food, but also cat food, little bits of paper, fuzz, or other random crap he finds. This makes going to the park tiring because I have to watch RJ AND make sure that Logan doesn't eat stones or bark. He also enjoys stacking toys with pegs and stacking blocks (or canned goods).

Language Development:

Logan can sign "all done", "milk" (meaning nursing), "more", and most impressive at this age, "diaper". He also waves good-bye. He babbles constantly and says something that I am convinced is "RJ". Other words:
"doh" which we think is door/window
"dat" which is almost anything. I interpret it as him asking, "What is THAT?", but also could be "cat" since it is sometimes directed at Boca.
He also babbles a ton - dahdahdah, mamamama, babababa...etc.
Logan will also imitate some non word sounds, like squealing, laughing, huffing/puffing, and roaring and cars vrooming. Basically anything RJ does, Logan tries to do too. He also randomly yells when he's mad or frustrated. He squeals when he's happy or excited. Mostly, he's loud.
It's pretty clear that Logan understands a lot more language than he produces (which is pretty typical at this age) because he can follow simple directions (put this in the box, hand me the ___, come here, where's momma?, etc.) I'm sure that normally I model and point while giving these directions, but I've tested some without gestures too.

Socio-emotional Development

Logan is definitely not the drama-queen that RJ is, but he does let us know when he is unhappy by complaining when he's angry with the situation and generally throwing things to the floor that he's unhappy with. He cries when he's hurt or tired, but generally he's a very easy-going kid. He usually has a big goofy grin on his face. He loves being around other kids (people in general too), and smiles and plays peek-a-boo around objects to get attention. He likes to be in on the action, which often frustrates RJ because he practically sits ON his big brother or his big brother's toys sometimes. He also likes to find RJ's favorite toys, wait until RJ puts it down and then speed-crawl or run away with it. He knows what he is doing too - the mischievous look is unmistakable. I foresee that he will be the "class clown" type when he's in school.

Cognitive Development

Logan is doing great with his problem solving. He loves opening and closing things, putting things in containers and taking them out. He is in full-blown exploration mode and fully examines whatever he can get his hands on. He is still my little music man and loves to play around with how to make different sounds with the instruments. Shakers and the kazoo are probably his favorites (and yes he actually figured out how to play the kazoo). New in this area is stacking objects.

Eating

At one year, Logan was nursing 5 times a day (5/6am, 9:30/10am, 1:30/2pm, 4:30pm, 8pm). For breakfast, I usually make him baby multi-grain cereal mixed with whole-milk yogurt and applesauce (or another fruit puree if I have one around). For lunch and dinner, he basically eats what we do, cut up super tiny. If we're eating something not very baby friendly, I still have some baby food that I'll break out of the freezer or cupboard until it's gone, but we aren't going to make or buy more at this point since he loves to eat table food and will grab whatever food is close by and shove it in his mouth. He ate his first California Roll on December 7 and loved it! He also finally started drinking a little whole milk from a sippy cup and we're hoping he'll increase the amount so that I can wean him from the daytime nursing. I plan to nurse him first thing in the morning and at bedtime as long as he wants to, just like I did with RJ.

Sleeping

Logan has made some progress in the sleep department. He CAN sleep through the night and has from 8:30 - 6, but usually he has been waking once or twice (at 1 and 5 or just at 4). He also CAN take a morning and an afternoon nap, but normally one is a good nap over an hour and the other one is a crappy short nap. I think a lot of the crappy sleep lately has been teething related though since he has been working on teeth for the last two months with nothing to show for it.

Teeth

Teeth are the bane of Logan's, Lance's, and my existence. At present he has 6 teeth, 4 on top, 2 on the bottom. He is working on another 6 - he has bulges for the next two on the bottom (these are the most prominent and closest to eruption), and some evidence that he is working on all 4 canines.


We can't wait to see what Logan's 2nd year has in store for us all!

DeLancey Family Winter Travels Volume II: Pittsburgh

Lance was scheduled to arrive in Buffalo a week after the rest of the family.  Anticipating some gifts for the kids to be transported back to California, he brought an empty carry-on suitcase and the santa hats we had forgotten.  Unfortunately, his flight was delayed out of SFO for mechanical issues which resulted in a missed connection and a night at the O'Hare Hilton.  Suddenly the empty suitcase except for two santa hats was not as amusing.

The next day we were all reunited in Buffalo and rented a car to drive down to Pittsburgh a little behind schedule.  We met up with the grandparents at Uncle Jim and Aunt Helen's house for some Della Sella's pizza.



RJ would probably list his highlight from Pittsburgh as going to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, home of "Dippy", Andrew Carnegie's pet Diplodocus carnegii and it's cousin the Apatosaurus louisae, named after his wife. The museum also has the holotype for Tyrannosaurus Rex

  amongst other dinosaurs. RJ really enjoyed seeing the dinosaurs, and playing in the Bonehunter's Quarry,

  but I think he got the biggest kick out of getting to touch fossilized dinosaur poop.

 
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he is a quintessential 3 year old boy. When we were in Oakland, we also headed to The Original for some O-fries,

  and then to the Cathedral of Learning to check out some of the Nationality rooms dressed up for the holidays.

On another day, we met up with the Vargos at Primanti Bros., where Logan devoured his first roast beef sandwich!


If RJ's highlight of the trip was the dinosaurs, then Logan's had to be meeting his future girlfriend, Cassandra when we met up with our friends, Carl and Lisa and their kids.



It wasn't as much time as we would have liked but we were glad to see Grandma and the rest of the family in Pittsburgh before heading back to Buffalo for more Christmas activities.

DeLancey Family Winter Travel Volume I: Momma and the Boys in Buffalo

When I mentioned that I was planning on flying with both children (with a layover at JFK) a week prior to Lance joining us, the general consensus was that I was either incredibly brave or incredibly insane. There were definitely some trying moments, like when both my children managed to piss themselves en route (Logan peed all over himself while I was changing his poopy diaper on the airplane), and RJ got quite upset about his accident that occurred when he had to pee as we were landing and then couldn't get off the plane in time because of the 13 rows of people in front of us. Luckily I had packed a change of clothes for both of them (even though RJ hasn't had an accident out in at least 6 mos, maybe longer). RJ did not like my plastic bag fix for his completely soaked sneakers though, but at least they kept his new, dry socks dry. Generally speaking the trip was much more pleasant than I had thought it would be. RJ did some coloring thanks to a Cars "Pack Up", and watched more TV than he is typically allowed thanks to Jet Blue's Direct TV. Logan flirted with everyone around us, nursed a little more often than usual since I put him on the boob when he got fussy (and it still works like a charm for mood improvement), but he took his normal naps, albeit on my lap. I will take holding a sleeping baby over containing an awake squirmy baby in a small space (even with Jet Blue's extra leg room) any day! Both kids slept on the flight from JFK to Buffalo. AND on both flights, we had the 3 seats to ourselves! The women seated next to us on the long flight chose to take one of the open middle seats over crowding our little circus with her assigned aisle seat and no one was seated in our row on the second flight.



Once we were in Buffalo, we had a rough sleeping week, but otherwise had fun.

There was the snow, of course. RJ helped Grammie shovel her deck and I took the kids out to play in the field in front of Grammie's house. RJ and I made a snowman and a snow-Logan (Logan buried in snow up to his waist), and some snow angels.

We also made cookies and decorated Grammie's tree (and the boys decorated each other a bit too).
*As a side note, I'm not sure why all our pictures are incredibly blurry. The lens of the cameral might have been smudged or there is something else wrong, but it unfortunately plagued most of our holiday pictures :(