Beach

This Sunday we took a family trip to the beach, and it was WONDERFUL! We took the Long Island Railroad to Long Beach (on Long Island) with our friends Mary and Cira, had burgers at Five Guys for lunch, and enjoyed the perfect beach day! It was just hot enough to make the cool water feel fantastic (about 90 degrees), and we were able to rent a huge beach umbrella to keep Kiana (and us) cool (perfect!). Aidan loved the beach (hooray!): he splashed in the water, loved "driving" the beach car that Mommy built him (it even had a "95" on it, just like Lightning McQueen from Cars), and jumped over the waves with Daddy. Kiana was fascinated with the trains in the morning so missed her morning nap, but then slept a lot in the afternoon to make up for it, which made it MUCH easier for Mommy and Daddy to enjoy the beach ourselves. So, everyone was happy! I wish we could do that every day!


Notes from the rest of the week:


AIDAN: I feel like every day this week, Aidan said something incredibly memorable. On Thursday, he brought a "new" song home from playschool:

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
/If you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream!
/If you see a polar bear, don't forget to shiver!

On Friday, we all went on the train to pick up Daddy from work and then pick up our pottery pieces from our project last week. While we were there, the radio started playing "Yesterday", and Aidan gave the 6 or 8 people doing pottery an impromptu concert, singing along! A couple of people did a double take to see a 3-year old seriously singing, "love was such an easy game to play!" - it was incredibly cute. Another day at home, he also sang Kiana a lullaby (a Hawaiian one I sing him to the tune of Brahm's Lullaby that is in his Goodnight Hawaiian Moon book). He's pretty amazing!


KIANA: This week, Kiana has really started "talking"! (Check out the video.) She's oohing and ahhing at her fish in her swing, saying "ah goo" to all of us, and having all sorts of little baby conversations with us whenever we stare at her and talk back! She continues to be fascinated with Aidan, and will crane her neck so she can see him, wherever he goes. She continues to be a wonderful cuddlebug, and we are having so much fun with her as she gets more and more interactive!

Routines

This week was Daddy's first official week as a civil servant! He is continuing to work at NASA GISS with the same people, but now has improved salary and benefits and security, which is wonderful!


This weekend, we went up to the Catskills to visit Grandpa Ruane for the weekend. Grandma is on safari in South Africa, so we didn't see her, but we were really happy to be there! Daddy got really sick, and Grandpa was a wonderful help with the kids. We had pizza at our favorite pizza restaurant (Brios) on Saturday, Aidan watered plants, picked blackberries (till his mouth was purpley-black!), and watched the movie Toy Story for the first time. Both kids were happy to see Grandpa (we haven't seen him since Tim's wedding 6 weeks ago!), Daddy was happy to get a chance to sleep off being sick, and Mommy was happy to be away in a beautiful green peaceful place with Grandpa helping out.


Here are some updates about where we are at now: At home, we've settled into a nice routine (at least for now!): Kiana gets up around 6:30-7:30AM, and Aidan gets up at 7:30AM. If Kiana is up early, Mommy plays with her a bit, otherwise, we all get up and start the day: Aidan watches an episode of Wonderpets or part of Caillou, has his cocoa, gummy bear vitamins, etc. (we're trying to get away from this tradition also including 2 marshmallows and assorted graham cracker goldfish!), then we eat breakfast, and then Daddy (usually) takes Aidan to playschool.


Once Aidan and Daddy leaves, Kiana is usually ready for a little cat-nap. I usually clean up breakfast, go through email, and things like that for half an hour while she naps, and then she's up for about an hour. So, we play for a bit (right now she smiles and smiles at the baby in the mirror! she also loves "this little piggie..." and "round and round the garden" games with her fingers and toes). Then I give her a bath in the sink (she is such a beautiful baby!), which she is usually totally happy with now, and get her dressed again. After all of that, she's very ready to nurse and cuddle back to sleep. Then, she's been sleeping a good 2-3 hours! So, while she sleeps, I've been getting work done (I've sent in revisions on a journal article and revised the first chapter of the co-authored book on using Lord of the Rings to teach IR I'm working on) - it's been great! Just after noon, it's time to move the car, so Kiana helps me do that. Afterward, on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, it's time to pick up Aidan from playschool! (Tuesdays and Thursdays he has music until 2:30, but the other days we pick him up at 1PM).


Once we pick up Aidan, we often have a fruit snack in Bennett park, before coming home for some quiet playtime. Aidan will play with his cars, trains or garage, while Kiana plays on her playmat, and I set up snacks get ready for the afternoon. Kiana takes a couple of (30min-1hr) catnaps throughout the afternoon, but otherwise stays awake to see what Aidan is up to! After being home for a couple of hours, we either go outside to play on the playground, or have a friend over for a playdate. After a couple of hours of that, it's time to head back home, and Aidan watches another couple episodes of Wonderpets or Caillou, or part of Sesame Street while I work on dinner. By 6:30, Daddy is usually home, and we all have dinner together!


After dinner time, Aidan and Daddy have fun rough-housing (most recently, Daddy sits on the bed and says "nobody can push me over! nobody!" and Aidan tackles him and pushes until he gets him over - it's hilarious for everyone involved, except Kiana, who sometimes gets worried about all of the craziness and makes concerned questioning noises). Then it's bath time (another sink bath for Kiana if she needs it, a shower or bath in the big bath for Aidan), and Mommy nurses Kiana to sleep and reads Aidan a book (if she can). Aidan reads a couple of books with either Mommy or Daddy, and then cuddles with one of us (usually Daddy) to sleep. (Although, in the last week, he's been telling us that he wants to go to sleep all by himself! He actually did it a couple of nights when he was really tired - SO awesome! - the other nights, he tries for a minute and then comes to get us, which is fine. We're glad he's trying!) For quite a while, everyone was getting to sleep around 9:30pm, but in the last week, it's been between 8:20 and 9PM, which I am thrilled about. (Yay!) I'm glad to have more of a chance for sleep or downtime for parents!


A last couple of things about Aidan: he is doing a silly-language right now, where he comes up with silly names for things and does silly faces (e.g., crossed eyes, tongue out, saying "bleh???"). For example, he's named things like un-named ghosts in his Peek-a-who? book "Stederkt" (if you say "Steeder?" he'll correct you with all the extra consonants: "no StederK-T!"). He's also named the super-heroes from his underwear other than Spiderman "Skyderman" and "Biterman" (I think they are actually Wolverine and someone else, but I'm not sure who!).

A last thing about Kiana: she has the most ridiculously cute sad face ever! Her mouth turns into a perfect upside-down U, which, if it weren't so ridiculously cute, would be incredibly sad! But we can't help thinking she's incredibly cute, even though we wish she weren't sad!

Pottery

This week, Kiana has turned onto both of her sides, is really "talking" in babytalk (ah-goo! ooohhhhhh!), and continues to be fascinated by her big brother. It's wonderful! Aidan also continues to be wonderful with her - a couple of times this week, he's just sat in front of her swing and babbled silly-talk to her for 5 minutes at a time! She stares at him, wide-eyed, or smiling - loving it!


We had a social week this week. Monday, I went out out for a "girl's night" for the first time since Kiana's arrival with my friend Christa (so awesome!). The rest of the week, we had lots of playdates: Aidan's friends Olivia came over Wednesday, Rowan came over Thursday (with his little brother Wesley, who is just a little younger than Kiana), and on Friday, Kiana met a new friend in our building: Dash (& Kat) - it's exciting to have playdates for her as well as Aidan!


In addition to the fun social outings, I've been happy this week because of a food routine switch with Aidan: I've started only offering fruit snacks in the afternoons (or with cheese or veggies, but no crackers of any kind), and he has started eating a whole lot more fruit, and has been much better about eating dinner! I've told him that he can pick out any fruit he wants to at Ahn's (the neighborhood fruit/veggie store), and he's been willing to have yellow apples and chedder (his favorite), watermellon, green and purple grapes, and even carrots with hummus! Small steps, but good ones. :)


This weekend, we went to a friend's birthday party on Saturday in the park in what turned out to be a beautiful cool and sunny day. On Sunday, we all went to the Little Shop of Crafts and had a great time painting pottery! Aidan painted a salsa bowl for Daddy and helped do the bottom coats for a frame and hot plate, and Kiana put her foot and hand prints on the frame and plate. They are going to be so cute! :)

More visitors

This week Aidan came down with a virus (sore throat and low fever) and stayed home from playschool Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Poor baby! The hardest part for him was that he wasn't allowed to kiss Kiana's head and fingers, which he usually does all the time - he was only allowed to kiss her tummy and her toes. I explained that this was only because we didn't want her to get sick, and he understood, but it was very hard! On Friday, when he had been symptom free for at least 24 hours, he was so happy to be able to kiss her head and fingers as well as toes! And all of us were happy that his hard efforts paid off - Kiana seems to have avoided the virus! (Yay!)

The nice thing about having Aidan home this week was that he got to see more visiting family! On Tuesday, Aunt Beth, Craig and cousin Maia stopped by and on Wednesday, Aunt Helen and cousin Heather stopped by for brief visits. They were all thrilled to meet Kiana, and enjoyed seeing how big Aidan has grown! Daddy was at work for both visits, but I loved seeing them as well!


This weekend Mama had her first solo night with two kids: Daddy went to a wedding in Washington D.C. while I stayed home with both of them. It ended up working out okay. Saturday, everyone woke up at 5:30AM for an early day! Aidan did an amazing art project in the morning (he cut out construction paper, we pasted it together, and he added stickers - a major multi-media project!), and then we took the bus down to the "Dinosaur park" (J. Hood Wright Park - there are dinosaur climbing structures there) for playtime and ice cream. Saturday night, Laurie came over to help me put the kids to bed, and Aidan passed out at 7:10PM after a tired fit and his favorite mac'n'cheese for dinner. Kiana stayed up a bit later, but passed out just after 8pm. Both kids basically stayed asleep all night long, with a couple of wakings that were close to each other but not so much that Mama had to be in two places at once. (Phew!)

Smile!

Within the last couple of weeks, Kiana has really started to smile! Her smiles light up her whole face, and we LOVE seeing them! When Aidan is pushing her on her swing or cuddling with her, he now regularly says, "look at that smile!". Aidan continues to be incredibly sweet with his little sister. We heard him a couple of times last week say, "Where's that little munch?" or "How's that little munch?" (His version of "munchkin": we love the words he comes up with - we've also totally adapted his "snuggleybugs" over our traditional "snugglebug"!)


Kiana had her 2 month old (!) doctor's appointment last Tuesday, and she is growing great! She is already 24 inches tall and 13.4 pounds, which puts her squarely in 3-6 month old clothes! We're going to have to start buying 6-9 month old clothes, soon! I think we're doing a great job together, and I LOVE that she has got the beginnings of rolls. :) Kiana is also starting to really lift her head up during tummy time, often encouraged by the excitement of watching her big brother play nearby. :)


This weekend, we took a train to a pirate ship playground in Brooklyn. Aidan had fun playing boat and train on the pirate ship, and we ended up watching a bit of an outrigger canoe race (the Liberty Cup), which (after a long stint around the Statue of Liberty) ended right next to the playground!