I get some of the most interesting comments from the kids while we are in the car together. Today, out of the blue, John remarked, "Hey, mom? You know our friends, the G____? Well, they have a lot of children in their family."
"Yes, you're right, John" (They have eight.)
Then, all was silent in the car for several minutes, but John was apparently still thinking on this topic. He soon piped in with, "Mom, you should grow more babies in your tummy, until we have more kids than the G____."
"Oh, really? You think we should have a bigger family? Well, how many kids would be enough, do you think?"
"Umm...eighty-one."
"Hmm. That is more than we can manage, I think."
"Well, then, how about just nine?"
Friday, February 10, 2012
Saturday, February 4, 2012
What a difference a year makes!
Here is Helen in her tub as a newborn (2 weeks old), lying on the newborn sling attachment to hold her up. The, on her first birthday, when she sits up and fills the tub all by herself. She is actually a smallish one-year-old, but she has certainly come a long way!
Birthday video
And here she sings a bit, too.
Helen's Birthday, In Pictures
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| Good Morning, Sunshine! I'm ONE today! |
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| The first present of the day was a big, white, stuffed valentine's dog, from Grandpa Tom. Helen found it on the floor and helped herself to it. She did love the dog, but the "happy birthday" paper was nothing to sneeze at, either. She loved that she could carry paper around with her, and rip it, and no one came to stop her. Until she ate it, of course. |
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| Feeling mellow. |
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| Feeling like big stuff today, so she thought she should sit in a "big" chair like the big people do. |
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| Helen with Mom and Grandma Di |
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| Opening the ABC Dinosaur from Great Aunt Sue and Great Grandma Helen. Again, the paper was a big hit, but she liked the toy, too. Especially when she learned that it could play music. She really, really likes music - she always dances, as if under a compulsion, when music plays in her hearing. |
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| I hadn't planned to get her a gift - after all, she is only one. But James and Maggie were at the store with me this week and wanted her to have this book. It is another "peek-a-boo" style book from the same series as the "Baby Baa Baa" book that she got for Christmas from Grandma Di and loves so much. And Helen, more than any 12-month-old I have yet known of, really does appreciate a book. If for no other reason, than because they are so tasty. |
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| Helen looked mostly scared when we all sang Happy Birthday to her. Given her aforementioned love of all things musical, could this be her commentary on the family singing abilities? This grin might be due to her relief that we were all done singing. Blowing out the candle was not even remotely on her radar, but the rest of us helped. And she did looked startled when it suddenly went out! |
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| Happy baby. I am ot sure if that grin is from the banana cake, or because she got her own spoon and fork and we turned her loose. Because I hate the mess, I really don't let her feed herself. So, that was her birthday treat. |
What do Grandpas do?
Me: Hey John, Grandpa invited you to come overnight and see the MSU basketball game with him...but he only has one extra ticket, so you would be there all by yourself, without James or Maggie. Do you want to go?
John: Umm...No. [Long Pause; a sly look creeps into his eyes] Actually, Yes!
Me: Really? Are you sure?
John: Yup! 'Cause I could eat lots of junk food and watch lots of awesome TV!
Me: Ah. Well what if I told Grandpa not to let you watch any TV? Would you still want to go?
John: [In a dismissive, almost scornful tone] Yeah! 'Cause he'd still let me watch awesome TV anyway. 'Cause that is what Grandpas do.
John: Umm...No. [Long Pause; a sly look creeps into his eyes] Actually, Yes!
Me: Really? Are you sure?
John: Yup! 'Cause I could eat lots of junk food and watch lots of awesome TV!
Me: Ah. Well what if I told Grandpa not to let you watch any TV? Would you still want to go?
John: [In a dismissive, almost scornful tone] Yeah! 'Cause he'd still let me watch awesome TV anyway. 'Cause that is what Grandpas do.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!
Helen is 1 this week! It seems hard to believe that the little baby is so old already. Even the big kids have said so, and this isn't a kid-like observation, in my experience. ("I can't believe Helen is turning one already. It seems like she just got here!" remarks the 4-year-old, 7-year-old, and 10-year-old on separate occasions.) I thought it would be nice to mark the milestone with a few reflections on what she is like.
Helen at Age One
Helen loves to walk. All walking, all the time. She refuses to sink to any other form of locomotion, in fact, even to her own detriment. In the mornings, when I hear her calling from the bedroom, I dash upstairs to help her out of bed. If she possibly can, she won't crawl across our queen-size mattress to get off; instead, she stands up where she is, right in the middle, and tries to walk across to me at the edge. If any of you have tried to walk on one of the newer styles of mattress lately, you might realize that the thick, squishy, memory foam top is not good for this. She stumbles and trips all the way across. Still, after each fall, she steadies herself and pushes back to standing and walking; she is not going to suffer the indignity of crawling across the bed like a baby! Then, when she finally gets to the edge of the bed, she has to call for help to get down. Since we don't use a bed frame or box springs, our kids have always learned fairly early to slide down to the floor by themselves. Not Helen, though. She tried going off head-first a few times, then tried walking off feet-first. She quickly gave up and now just calls for help.
She has the same sort of problem with stairs. We have showed all the kids how to crawl down the stairs backwards as soon as they learned to climb up them, to give them a safe way down. James and Maggie both caught on to this very quickly. For John, of course, he tried it about once before deciding that sliding on his belly like an otter was much better than crawling - but he always got down safely on his own, at least. So Helen is a bit of a mystery to us. She absolutely refuses to learn how to do this. She crawls up steps with great enthusiasm, but when she is done exploring the upper worlds, she has to resort to standing at the top and again calling piteously for someone to bring her back down. Her problem with the steps seems to be just pure stubbornness. She won't drop to all fours, and she won't go backwards, both of which are required to safely navigate steps that are a quarter of one's total body height.
So, no going down. Other than that, she is highly mobile after nearly 2 months of walking practice.
Which is not to say that she is completely graceful. This week, in particular, has been hard on her. She has been bleeding from her mouth at least 4 times in the last 5 days. The combination of having 7 teeth (4 up; 3 down), a tottering gait, and a rambunctious 4-year-old brother has led to some unfortunate and bloody face plants. Her cheeks are bruised just enough to look perpetually dirty. I am so glad that I have a distinct memory from the other kids that this is at least marginally normal. I recall thinking for several of the older ones that I would have to work hard to convince the pediatrician at the 12-month check-up that I wasn't an abusive parent despite all the bumps and scrapes. I must say that the bleeding every day is a new one for me - which is saying something with a fourth child, I think.
Helen loves to play in cupboards. Our kitchen is a jerry-rigged with every kind of contrivance to keep her out, most to no avail. (It was a source of great entertainment to our senior engineering students when they came for an evening, finding all the improvised anti-Helen devices.) Of course, part of the problem is that we have given up on purchased safety devices after John overcame or broke them all at this age. I thought I was on to something when we visited our friends the Greers and they had a fancy-looking new kind of cabinet latch - but alas. Helen figured those out almost instantly. So instead, we have rubber bands around knobs, yardsticks through drawer pulls, and other fun gadgets. She appears to have a very analytic, mechanical, inquisitive mind. She loves to study how contraptions work, and take them apart bit by bit. I am quite sure she understands how the rubber bands work; she just isn't quite strong to pull them off.
So the end result is that whenever she finds an opening, she unpacks the cupboards. She especially likes the snack cupboard, because once she is in then there are boxes inside to unpack even further. Packets of hot cocoa mix, sleeves of crackers, granola bars, plastic cups ... endless fun. We were at church a few weeks ago and I set her down for a moment. She took off like a shot, straight down the long hall and into the church kitchen. I know she has never been in this room before, but somehow she could just smell it. First thing she did in there? Of course - open the cupboards.
I have gotten used to the contents of my kitchen cabinets being strewn about all of the time. I can learn to just overlook that, I guess. It was a bit more distressing, however, when she managed to not only empty out, but somehow dismantle, the large bottom drawer. She was sitting in it, pleased as could be. The drawer was off the track and on the floor, and there were some random screws on the floor. I honestly don't know how she managed that in the few moments while I was in the next room.
Her favorite place to play is the drawer under the oven. She opens it, pulls out the items we store there, and climbs in. Then she just beams at us, as if sitting in this drawer is the core purpose of her days on earth.
Helen is not much of a talker. Sometime over the past month, her first word emerged: BOOK. Actually, when she says it, there is no "k," so it sounds more like "buuh." But she does use it consistently for her board books, which she loves. Granted, she loves to eat them at least as much as she loves to read them, but she will also sit with her book for some time, just studying the pictures. At the moment, she is particularly fond of a new one she got for Christmas, with farm animals, called "Baby Baa Baa." She loves to hear the animal sounds. In fact, when she first started asking for her book, I think she was saying "baa baa" rather than "book," although she quickly dropped that.
I have heard just a few other possible words emerging from her. She says "buuh" (the same sound) in ways that sometimes seem to mean "brother." She definitely makes a sound like "Maa" or "mom" now, although it is rarely clear if she actually is asking for her mother. Her first babble-sound was "da-da-da" but I haven't heard that lately, either as a word or a babble.
Other things Helen loves to do:
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| January 21, 2012 (11.5 months) |
Helen loves to walk. All walking, all the time. She refuses to sink to any other form of locomotion, in fact, even to her own detriment. In the mornings, when I hear her calling from the bedroom, I dash upstairs to help her out of bed. If she possibly can, she won't crawl across our queen-size mattress to get off; instead, she stands up where she is, right in the middle, and tries to walk across to me at the edge. If any of you have tried to walk on one of the newer styles of mattress lately, you might realize that the thick, squishy, memory foam top is not good for this. She stumbles and trips all the way across. Still, after each fall, she steadies herself and pushes back to standing and walking; she is not going to suffer the indignity of crawling across the bed like a baby! Then, when she finally gets to the edge of the bed, she has to call for help to get down. Since we don't use a bed frame or box springs, our kids have always learned fairly early to slide down to the floor by themselves. Not Helen, though. She tried going off head-first a few times, then tried walking off feet-first. She quickly gave up and now just calls for help.
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| Helen the walking baby shows off her new Christmas present dress from Aunt Sue (1-15-12; 11 months old) |
She has the same sort of problem with stairs. We have showed all the kids how to crawl down the stairs backwards as soon as they learned to climb up them, to give them a safe way down. James and Maggie both caught on to this very quickly. For John, of course, he tried it about once before deciding that sliding on his belly like an otter was much better than crawling - but he always got down safely on his own, at least. So Helen is a bit of a mystery to us. She absolutely refuses to learn how to do this. She crawls up steps with great enthusiasm, but when she is done exploring the upper worlds, she has to resort to standing at the top and again calling piteously for someone to bring her back down. Her problem with the steps seems to be just pure stubbornness. She won't drop to all fours, and she won't go backwards, both of which are required to safely navigate steps that are a quarter of one's total body height.
So, no going down. Other than that, she is highly mobile after nearly 2 months of walking practice.
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| Helen's first Christmas (2011). |
Which is not to say that she is completely graceful. This week, in particular, has been hard on her. She has been bleeding from her mouth at least 4 times in the last 5 days. The combination of having 7 teeth (4 up; 3 down), a tottering gait, and a rambunctious 4-year-old brother has led to some unfortunate and bloody face plants. Her cheeks are bruised just enough to look perpetually dirty. I am so glad that I have a distinct memory from the other kids that this is at least marginally normal. I recall thinking for several of the older ones that I would have to work hard to convince the pediatrician at the 12-month check-up that I wasn't an abusive parent despite all the bumps and scrapes. I must say that the bleeding every day is a new one for me - which is saying something with a fourth child, I think.
Helen loves to play in cupboards. Our kitchen is a jerry-rigged with every kind of contrivance to keep her out, most to no avail. (It was a source of great entertainment to our senior engineering students when they came for an evening, finding all the improvised anti-Helen devices.) Of course, part of the problem is that we have given up on purchased safety devices after John overcame or broke them all at this age. I thought I was on to something when we visited our friends the Greers and they had a fancy-looking new kind of cabinet latch - but alas. Helen figured those out almost instantly. So instead, we have rubber bands around knobs, yardsticks through drawer pulls, and other fun gadgets. She appears to have a very analytic, mechanical, inquisitive mind. She loves to study how contraptions work, and take them apart bit by bit. I am quite sure she understands how the rubber bands work; she just isn't quite strong to pull them off.
So the end result is that whenever she finds an opening, she unpacks the cupboards. She especially likes the snack cupboard, because once she is in then there are boxes inside to unpack even further. Packets of hot cocoa mix, sleeves of crackers, granola bars, plastic cups ... endless fun. We were at church a few weeks ago and I set her down for a moment. She took off like a shot, straight down the long hall and into the church kitchen. I know she has never been in this room before, but somehow she could just smell it. First thing she did in there? Of course - open the cupboards.
I have gotten used to the contents of my kitchen cabinets being strewn about all of the time. I can learn to just overlook that, I guess. It was a bit more distressing, however, when she managed to not only empty out, but somehow dismantle, the large bottom drawer. She was sitting in it, pleased as could be. The drawer was off the track and on the floor, and there were some random screws on the floor. I honestly don't know how she managed that in the few moments while I was in the next room.
Her favorite place to play is the drawer under the oven. She opens it, pulls out the items we store there, and climbs in. Then she just beams at us, as if sitting in this drawer is the core purpose of her days on earth.
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| "Who, me? I wasn't doing anything." - Helen at almost 10 months (12-1-11). |
I have heard just a few other possible words emerging from her. She says "buuh" (the same sound) in ways that sometimes seem to mean "brother." She definitely makes a sound like "Maa" or "mom" now, although it is rarely clear if she actually is asking for her mother. Her first babble-sound was "da-da-da" but I haven't heard that lately, either as a word or a babble.
Other things Helen loves to do:
- Have a bath.
- Use the toilet (Really! - she will often go if we put her on at the right time, and she grins all over when she does).
- Sneak into Maggie's room (just because it makes Maggie mad, I think).
- Dance (if there is any sort of music, or even just rhythmic clapping, she will start to sway and bounce).
- Climb onto James's bed (the lower bunk). Once there, she typically just twists the bed spindles to enjoy the hideous squeaking sound, but the other night, she hit the jackpot because James had left the laptop on his bed after doing some homework. I found Helen sitting on the bed in front of it, enthusiastically typing away in James's document.
- Look out the window. Any window.
- Be near the big kids.
- Play the piano. (She can't see the keys, but on tip-toe she can just reach up and plunk them. She is rather melodious at times.)
Helen enjoys food. It seems to me that she eats more than the others did at this age, but that could be my poor memory. She certainly is the smallest of any of them for the age, so it seems unlikely. She mostly still eats baby food, since she has no molars. She does seem to enjoy anything we try to offer her, though, if she can possibly mash it down. She is particularly fond of bananas (she can eat nearly a whole one in a sitting) and pancakes (ate two good-sized ones for lunch the other day). If she sees something that she wants to eat, she looks at it intently and laughs. Just a very deliberate, focused, "Heh." Then she looks at the person whom she is expecting will deliver it to her, to be sure they got the message. Quiet, polite, but insistent.
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| Helen with Dad, 12-10-11 (10 months) |
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| Helen with Grandpa Tom, 12-24-11 (10 months) |
Helen is a cheerful, good-natured baby. She really just rolls with anything. Often literally. She screams now and then when put in her car seat, but usually only if she is tired or hungry already when we try to buckle her in. She clings a bit when she is hungry and fusses unconvincingly when tired. Otherwise, she just goes happily about her business.
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