Doctor Love

Funny story...

My good friend Page from college is also known affectionately as Doctor Love.   She received this singing gorilla as a gift years ago, perfect for her.  Well, Doctor Love and Cole share a birthday.   And, Cole loves to talk about Doctor Love (Wuv).  "Call Doctor Wuv, Mommy.  Let's call Doctor Wuv!"  He's never met her, though!  He also knows that on his birthday he will be two and Doctor Love will be furty (thirty).  So Page decided to send her Doctor Love gorilla to her biggest Doctor Love fan and birthday buddy...Cole!  Thanks, Page, and Happy Birthday!  

Happy Birthday

Cole is 2 today!  He is so much fun, and we love him so much!  A few things about Cole now that he is 2...

• He loves music!  He plays the guitar, xylophone, piano, harmonica, recorder, drums, and of course, pots and pans and the table at dinner time!
• His world would end without apple juice.  
• He provides commentary about everything. "There's a tree, Mommy.  I have a drink, Mommy.  I'm done sleeping now, Mommy.  My Happy Birthday is here, Mommy!" 
• He loves to read and be read to.  A few of our latest favorites are If You Take a Mouse to the Movies and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. 
• Cole loves to give hugs and kisses, especially to Max.
• He loves to dig in the dirt and sand with his rake and shovel to find treasures.  
• Oh, and he loves Handy Manny, Elmo, and Tigger & Pooh. 

Florida

We're in Florida!  Hooray for warm weather!  My family spent Easter weekend together down here and the boys and I are staying with my mom until the end of the week.  Cole has had a blast swimming and playing with Uncle Mike.  Max is smiley as usual, and is even starting to laugh out loud especially when GrandBob makes funny faces!   

Proof

Butternut squash on the left.  Cantaloupe on the right.  Yay!

small victories

hi! i am so thankful to be able to write about some small victories we have experienced this week in our family!  

1. for at least a week max and cole have been going to bed at the same time at night, giving chris and i a couple of hours to ourselves. hooray!

2.  cole is really growing in his abilities to clean up his toys and entertain himself.  i no longer dread nursing max while cole is awake and my default is not the tv. 

3.  max smiled in the bath for the first time this week.  maybe it helped that i put both boys in the tub together?  that explains why there is no picture to prove it!  my hands were definitely full.  they both seemed to love it, and this is a welcomed change from max's bloody murder screams that we'd been enduring since he was born!

4.  my butternut squash and cantaloupe seeds have sprouted and are growing stronger in my kitchen window.   so strong, in fact, that i need to replant in larger containers.  

5.  i made my first successful lemon meringue pie.  yum!

i hope you can celebrate some small victories this week, too!   

Easter Conversation

Scene:  I'm folding laundry while Cole is opening some plastic eggs filled with items representing Easter.  We have never had an Easter discussion thus far...

Cole:  What's this Mommy?

Anne: It's a cross, Cole.  At Easter time we celebrate when Jesus died on the cross and rose again.

Cole:  I rose again, too, Mommy.

Cole: What's this Mommy?

Anne: It's a rock, Cole.  When Jesus died, some people buried him behind a huge rock and three days later when his mom came to the rock, Jesus was alive again.

Cole:  Jesus talked to his mom, Mommy.  I'm going to see Jesus in a minute. 

Anne: What did you find, Cole? 

Cole: Money!  I found another Luginbill.  (He thinks that the bills you pay each month, cash bills,  and Luginbills (my family) are one in the same.) 

Growing

We went for a walk this morning, and when we returned home we noticed these pretty yellow flowers growing our yard.   Spring is coming!   Typical Cole, his fascination with the flowers quickly turned to destruction.  Gentle, gentle...

I also am so excited because the seeds I planted in our little kitchen garden last week are growing too.   I was expecting to wait a few more weeks, but today I was pleasantly surprised!  This afternoon I'm going to plant lemon, red pepper, and clementine seeds.  Hooray for spring! 

Piano Man

We are the proud recipients of my grandparents' piano.  It arrived today in a moving truck, which was great excitement for Cole first thing in the morning!   He LOVES the piano so much that he often plays it on other objects like speakers, books, tables, you name it!   He often asks to see the piano on YouTube, too.  Now he can actually play real keys.  Fun! 

Clever Cole

So, Cole was strolling around the kitchen today and he discovered that he had a back pocket in his jeans.  He stuck his hand in it.

Chris: Cole, what is that?

Cole: It's a pocket.

Chris:  Oh.  What's inside your pocket?

Pause...

Cole: My hand.

Smart kid - he's not even 2 yet and I can't easily trick him anymore.

Snow Ice Cream

For those of you still buried under heaps of winter snow as we are here in Bloomington, here's a fun and free dessert to try, even in the morning!  Take a few cups full of snow to your kitchen.  Put in a bowl.  Add 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 Tbsp. brown sugar, and a few Tbsp. of milk.  Stir, enjoy, and definitely go back for more!

A Shovelin' We Will Go

SMART

We were just sitting at the table finishing up our Starbucks drinks (thanks to my boss).  Cole was talking about the sun going up tomorrow and how it gets dark when the sun goes down.

Chris:  Cole, how did you become so smart?

Cole: I come to Starbucks.

Special shout out to Debbie! :)

Kitchen Garden

Lately Cole and I have been collecting seeds from all of the fruits and vegetables we eat.   Today we emptied out some yogurt containers (we kept the yogurt!), gathered some soil from our yard, and planted four different types of seeds: apple, pear, cantaloupe, and butternut squash.  We put them in plastic bags to create our own little greenhouse, and we have high hopes to see little plants sprouting in about 3 weeks.  We'll see! 

Playing Together!

Happy 2 Monthday to Max!

Max is 2 months old today.  Wow!  He is really alert these days, too, when he's awake.  I discovered yesterday that he can stick his tongue out when I do, and that he smiles when we sing to him.  Fun!  He's been quite the wiggle worm lately, too.  He's learning that he has arms and legs!  He's not sleeping through the night completely yet...sigh...but we're working on that.  He only wakes once to eat and goes back to sleep quickly.   All in all, a wonderful baby!  

Perfect Boy Activity

It was a perfect Sunday afternoon for Cole to dig around in the dirt.  I love wonderful weather!  We took a family walk to the park on Sunday and enjoyed the sunshine.  Cole is much more brave and sturdy on the playground now than he was last fall.  Wow!  Max snoozed in the baby bjorn the whole time.  We all, except Max of course, enjoyed popsicles on our front porch bench after lunch when we got home.  I can't wait for more days like that! 

I am thankful for...

Cole's chalkboard masterpieces,

Max's cheesy smiles, 

and Chris's creativity early this morning!

Sidenote:  I was up with Max at 2:30 am, 4:30 am, and 6:30 am today.  Ug!  Chris is NOT a morning person, but today he woke up earlier than normal and filled my side of our bedroom with red balloons while I was feeding Max in the living room.   I was so surprised!   Tonight we're going on a date to Little Zagreb, a local Bloomington favorite.  It's been a great day! 

He Jumped Out!

On Sunday afternoon, Cole jumped out of his crib!  He smacked his nose on the hardwood floors below him, and thankfully he escaped with only a scuffed up pink nose.   So we took the crib apart and put it in the guest room for now.  No more crib for Cole...and no more injuries!  

I've also been learning a lot during the last week or so about my life now with two boys.  I've been flustered by lots of small things that together snowball into a large mess...at least according to me.    I was talking about this to a friend at church on Sunday, a woman who has teenagers and is a principal at a local elementary school.   She gave me some blogworthy advice.   She told me that one of the things she works on with parents at her school the most is the very thing I was struggling with Cole about.  He seems to learn something one day and tank the next day.  One day is fabulous and the next is junk.  Ug.  My friend told me that most parents (myself included) expect kids to continually grow in a positive way.  Picture the long upward part at the beginning of a roller coaster.   In fact, she said, that is not indicative of true child development, or I guess human development, too.  She encouraged me to think of Cole's learning and growing as lines continually rising and falling similar to the lines on the machine that monitors labor contractions as you wait for your baby to be born.   Whew.  I needed to be reminded of that.  Expect the ups and the downs.  It's all part of it.  And I needed to remind myself of how wonderful Cole really is instead of focusing on the things I wish he'd do or learn but isn't doing or learning yet.    I used to tell my fourth graders at VCS when they received a low grade or had trouble grasping something that if they knew everything already, they wouldn't need to be in fourth grade.  Same is true now in my new world of being a parent.  

One more piece of advice from my friend.  She said that she often prays this prayer that Ruth Graham (Billy Graham's wife) prayed at night, especially when her husband was out of town on business, which was a lot!  "Lord, please help me and my kids forget that today ever happened!"  So I prayed that last night, and today has been great.  Both boys are sound asleep, my house is picked up, and our water heater is being fixed (yahoo!). Who knows if it's because of my prayer.  I think it's just that the prayer helped my perspective.   God has definitely been faithful to sustain us during these myriad transitions we've been experiencing!  

Confessions

About a year ago I posted about my addiction to furniture rearranging.  Confession number one.  Now I have realized that I have a second addiction. Baking.  I bake all the time.  A day rarely goes by when I don't bake.  I look at my KitchenAid mixer standing proudly on my counter every morning and think to myself, "What I can I bake today?"  The thing is, there is ALWAYS something I'd like to try whether it be red velvet cake, lemon bars, chocolate mousse pie, or just brownies.  The sky is the limit!  Yum!  Baking is a great hobby for several reasons. It's scientific.  It's a blessing to those who eat the tasty products, although often a curse to their wastelines!  It's a way for Cole to learn about measurement and time.  It's a way for me to make my house smell great.  And, it's fuel for my husband's chocolate habit.  One of my favorite things to bake lately is cinnamon rolls.  I love baking them for my family, and since we spent last weekend in Indianapolis visiting my parents, it was naturally an occasion for cinnamon rolls!   See photo above...just out of the oven!   The other photo is of Miles and Cole being silly.   I couldn't resist posting that one either.   

Cole & Max

Cole resisted the photo opportunity...until I mentioned candy.  Yes, I will bribe for a cute photo!