The King and His Chariot

Last weekend Love Bug's new car seat arrived in the mail.  The box made for some great fun!

Because Every Parent Must Talk About Their Kids Poo...

Because it's Roo it was funny; plus it's my blog to document what we want to remember and teast the kids about when they're older.  Stop now if you don't want to read about poo. 

Here is how the conversation went.

Dada:  Roo, what are you doing?

Roo:  Poopin'

Roo:  Uh oh, it's stuck, oh no!

Roo had some poo issues this weekend, he hasn't had them in a long long time...but he was definitely one of those babies that had a hard time pooing.  When he was just a little newborn all you heard was him tooting in the baby monitor.  We had to go so far as to put Karo syrup in his bottles.  So finally, after 2 days of effort, shortly after the conversation above, he was successful.  I'm sure the prune and the juice we gave him to help everything along will cause the opposite problem a day from now.  Hopefully he'll potty train in the next year :)

Sweet Potatoes and Apples

Now that Love Bug is open to the idea of trying solid foods, we've been trying to introduce him to lots of new veggies and fruits. Unfortunately he seems to be a bit of a picky eater. He'll eat lots of sweet potatoes and lots of apple sauce and even the Gerber mix of apple and sweet potato. But will he eat anything else? Not so much. So now we've stocked up on apple sauce and sweet potatoes and are mixing it in with other veggies and fruits to see if we can get him to eat more. Apple sauce and carrots was today's mix, didn't look too yummy and didn't taste great, but we got him to eat a few carrots that way. I forgot just how messy baby food is.

Roo was such a great eater and still is, he'll eat anything and there's not much he hasn't tried; and when I say anything, I mean acquired tastes like olives all his veggies and pretty much anything edible. When we started solids with Roo at 4 months, he was easily done with the pureed stuff by now and eating Cheerios and other table food. Love Bug on the other hand, well, I think we're going to be on pureed foods for a while because not only is he funny about taste but also texture.

Oh well, at least he's eating solids now; that alone is a good step forward to becoming a real human.

First Fish

Last week dada took Roo fishing for the first time.  During the day we went to town and got Roo and Dada new fishing poles.  Roo caught not one but two fish.  He had such a blast and was so excited to tell Grandpa all about his fish when he saw him the next day.  

Nonsense

Because it's our parental duty to teach Roo, we've taken the liberty to teach him some nonsense too.

Enclosed in a McDonald's Happy Meal was the dumbest toy we've ever seen.  It was a guy in a knight uniform sitting on a large squirrel.  When you put the playing card in and wound up the toy, it hopped.  Pretty dumb if you ask me and since we're not up to date on recent movies we don't really even know how popular this toy may be.  So we taught Roo to call it "Dude on Squirrel."  Because, it's really important for our two going on three year old to know the word dude.

Sometimes, when Roo doesn't hear what we've told him or doesn't understand what we've said he'll say, 'what.'  It's one of the dumber sounding 'what's' that we've ever heard, so to make it even funnier, we've taught him to say 'huh' to go along with it.  Nothing like having your kiddo repeat, 'huh' 'what' after you.

We're so happy he's repeating words we've just said, it's taken a good amount of time for him to get to this point verbally, but we can't help but have a little bit of fun with it once in a while.

Bubbie's Passing

Bubbie passed early this morning.  She was a very special lady and she will be deeply missed.  We moved her down closer to my parents a few years ago as she could no longer live on her own because of Alzheimer's.  Though she just passed I have missed her for a long time now.  Alzheimer's is a horrible disease.

Bubbie was special in so many ways.  She spent her career working with handicapped kids.  She was compassionate and always understanding.  She took the time to get to know my friends, especially Barb and Joi.  When I first introduced her to Nate she could tell he was someone special and welcomed him with open arms.  She was family to everyone in my family even if she wasn't really related.  She and Nate's grandma instantly hit it off when they met at our wedding.  I know they'll have fun catching up.

I have lots of wonderful memories of Bubbie.  She would visit every summer and take my brother and I back to school shopping and was always aware of the latest styles; she was stylish herself!  After high school I spent a week with her in NYC.  We went on a red bus tour, saw the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and it was the first time I saw a Broadway show, Les Miserables.  She loved go into the city for the NYC Ballet and usually had a season pass.  I also remember walking down the street where she lived in Little Neck and going to her local public library when we would visit; education was always important to her.  And if I happened to visit her on a Tuesday, she'd take me along with her to Tuesday Night Chinese Night with her friends.  I always loved catching up with her at Thanksgiving.  I remember eagerly awaiting her and Poppy's arrival when we lived in Oakton.  And I always wanted to be at BWI when she would fly in, it was important to greet her right off the plane!  I called her once a week when I was in college and just as frequently when I moved out and got married.

Poppy passed long before Bubbie as did many of her close friends.  She learned to drive only after Poppy's passing, I think she was in her late 60's; pretty amazing (scary for those on the road though!).  I told mom that Bubbie had a chance to make a lot of new friends after Poppy left and that he's going to be busy getting to know some new family members when she arrives.  Bubbie's house in Deepdale was a special place that we all loved to visit, she had lived there for 54 years .  

I'm grateful that Bubbie had a chance to meet both boys.  I know she loved meeting them and spending time with them.  She was very entertained by Roo.

I am glad she no longer has to fight that horrible disease and believe she is in a much better place where she can be herself again.  I'm excited that she will get to reunite with Poppy; as my aunt said, he is going to greet her with a big bowl of chocolate ice cream.  She was a such a special lady and she will truly be missed.  I love you Bubbie.

Strawberries are Yummy

Two weeks ago, on Memorial Day weekend, we decided to take the boys berry picking.  We went to Westmoreland Berry Farm.  We've spent lots of time at the berry farm since we've moved to the area, but thought that this year, Roo would really enjoying picking the berries.  As you can see from the pictures, he did and was a berry mess!  His method was as expected for a two year old, eat a few, pass one to mommy to put in the basket, and then eat a few more.  His favorite part of the day was riding on the tractor!

I Can Sit....I Can Eat

Sorry for not updating in such a long time.  Love Bug has been sick, twice, since I last updated.  High fevers with a trip to the ER and little explanation of what's going on.  We're taking him back to the allergist to explore some immune issues this week.  He's doing so much better and is more or less back to normal, but we're still left wondering what is going on and why he gets sick pretty easily...other than, the 'he's a baby' explanation.  Needless to say, mommy's out of leave.But now for the fun stuff.  In the past couple of weeks Love Bug is able to sit steadily when we put him in a sitting position.  This is fun, he gets a much more exciting vantage point and it's one step closer to crawling.  Not that we're in a hurry for crawling, we'll have to re-baby proof some things, but he'll love it b/c he'll be able to get to anything he wants.  Right now he's an expert roller and rolls all around the room towards what he wants.

Love Bug is now enjoying solid foods!  This took some time and patience, but he's doing great.  He loves to feed himself with the spoon or gnaw on the spoon while mommy feeds him.  He seems to like a few of the foods we've tried so far, sweet potatoes, pears and squash but isn't so excited about peas.  We're still working our way through a lot of the first food and having fun eating dinner as a family.

Haircut #3

Roo hasn't had a haircut since we returned from vacation, last year.  So a couple of weeks ago, Dada used Love Bug's highchair to give Roo a haircut.  It actually looks pretty good, but I really miss his floppy hair.  Oh well, it'll grow out again, and it's not like Roo enjoys getting a haircut, so there's no real need to keep it short.  The only reason we cut it was to help him not get as hot outside.  So stay tuned for some pics of floppy Roo hair this winter!