March 18, 2008

February 2008

Dear Kids,

The word of the month is blur. Days upon days are melting together and suddenly the month has passed by in a haze. Why, you ask? Cause it seems as though a certain five month old doesn't think he needs to sleep more than an hour at a time and thus creating a thread of days interrupted by little blips of sleep. More on this later.

So, it's been a long and cold winter and we decided to load up the van and head south to St. George over Presidents Day weekend. We had a fun reunion with Aunt Suzie and Uncle Jeremy who flew out from their home in Washington DC with Cousin Tennyson in tow. He's quite the little man with his fancy walkin' and talkin' and general acting like he owned the joint...oh wait, that was Ruby who acted like she owned the joint. Anyway it was fun to experience the T man in full force. What a cute little feller, especially in person.

We celebrated your mom's birthday by watching a pantless cousin Lyndon spit on the cake (or was it cousin Ethan) and other moments of hilarity. We went swimming and played in the yard...okay, YOU guys did that while I was hacking away on my work computer I hauled down as I had some work that had to get out the door. Fortunately, I did manage to blow off work for a couple of hours to go swimming. Anyway, it was great to get away for a bit and be with my little family, whom I don't get to see as much as I’d like.

While we were there this sleep-epidemic with Henry began and kept everybody in earshot awake for the last two nights (or was it three?). Unfortunately for us this has continued since we've been home. Our best guess is that you are teething as your hand is constantly in your mouth and your chin is often soaked in drool. Hopefully this'll pass soon and we can get back to sleepin' and generally being nice to each other again.

It's also worth noting that you have a new cousin born just a few days ago. Baby Thaddeus was born in San Francisco to Uncle Erik and Aunt Anna on February 27th. I can't tell you how happy I am that you have Campbell cousins who are close to you in age. Ruby has Cousin Nora, who is about a year older and now baby Thad and Henry are about five months apart. Sadly, I'm not sure we'll get to interact that much given the distance and how much harder it's getting for us to travel, but you never know.

I have to also admit that I've been pretty sad lately. You two kids are hopelessly addicted to your mother it seems. For Ruby it hasn't been all that surprising given the rug-pulled-out-from you new-baby adjustment you've been coping with. But now Henry too?! Honestly, I just don't get it as it seems as though you are just too young to know who she is, but you most definitely do judging by the way you light up when you see her walk into a room.

Seriously though, it's been hard on your mom as she feels so overwhelmed at times. I feel horrible as there seems to be nothing I can do to help out. Whichever one of you I’m assigned to be with becomes grumpy and obsessed to which then you lament the time away from your prized mother. The only bright spot for me is on Saturday when your mom is working and the three of us get to be together for a few hours. During this time you usually chill out and forget all about your mom as we do fun things like watch This Old House and eat mac & cheese. Sometimes we even go on road trips to Papa & GG's house or even go to the zoo.

RUBY -

Man, where did you come from? There are times when I just can’t believe the words that come out of your mouth or the attitude that those words are sometimes delivered. At the drop of a hat you can be this little miss thing and the next you are the most lovable little creature ever in existence. I’ve heard that girls are often more prone to mood swings and with each passing day you are furthering cement that little nugget of hearsay.

Your latest obsession (of which there seems to be a few) is taking pictures. Thankfully we have an older and more beat up camera that I’m less paranoid of letting you play with. I love to see your passion as you push the buttons, turn the dial and bark out instructions to your mostly willing subjects. Then we take the camera and download pictures onto the laptop where we have our little slideshow/critique. It’s fun to do something together and I hope to encourage whatever passion is in your sights.

Another obsession you have is to drink from cups that are non-kid (ie. lidless). You do pretty good and manage to keep the liquid where it’s supposed to go for the most part. Being the clean-freak that I am I sometimes have a problem with this, but I’m learning to chill out. At some point we’ll be replacing the carpet or rugs in our house...maybe later than sooner.

And speaking of making a mess, you’ve become pretty good at it lately with your PlayDough and crayons ‘n crafty stuff. Around Christmastime you obsessed about having a pair of scissors and now that you have them you still can’t seem to get enough paper cutting done during the day. When I come home from work there are usually piles of projects left abandoned for another a few feet away. Moma bought a roll of butcher paper to which you are making a dent in judging by the size of the ever-shrinking roll. Again, this forces me to chill out and look at the big picture. Who knows...maybe someday you’ll be an award-winning designer or photographer or poet or something and to think that I’d crush that creativity due to some little obsession about cleanliness seems silly.

For most of your toddler-hood mom has been taking you to the SL Public Library for story time. For a bit she took you to the Barnes & Noble one in Sugarhouse but then opted for the Library. In her words it’s “more real” and you seem to respond to the readers better. I’m glad we live in a city where such options are available.

One of my fondest moments of you this month happened when we went out to dinner with our friends the Bybee’s. Amanda was due any day with baby Adeline and she had a hanerkin’ for The Sizzler. The day leading up to it you seemed to be committed to a pair of sunglasses you found around the house and would put up a fit when we tried taking them off. So, in an effort to avoid a scene we let you wear them the whole night. The funniest part is that you would put them on upside-down and wouldn’t let us correct them. How fun that you can get away with such shenanigans. I plan on letting you milk that for all it’s worth.

HENRY -
Yeah...I did mention the sleep, yeah? Honestly, I’m in such a fog over the lack of sleep that I can’t remember much about you this month. Just kidding. I remember your handsome little face smiling back at me at 3:30 in the morning and hearing you talk when you wake up happy. And speaking of waking up, did I mention that you are an expert at waking up? You seem to have perfected it in such a short amount of time that you could win some kind of award or medal or something.

Currently your mom and I are deliberating about what to do about the sleep. We’ve tried a few things and they work for a night or two but then as soon as we zig, you zag. We even tried the dreaded let-you-cry-it-out/tough-love approach which worked for all of about an hour. Your mom couldn’t pull the trigger on that one as she just can’t stand hearing you cry.

So, in a way we’re back to square one. Our latest strategy includes no longer swaddling you and taking your binkie away. Combining this with a wee bit of the cry-it-out is currently working, but again...you zig, we zag.

We did finally break down and bought you a little crawler thingy. You have taken to this with all the glee you are capable of and so far I’m gonna go ahead and deem this purchase a success. We were at the the baby supply store and deliberated which one we were gonna buy and then finally went with our financial gut and bough the cheap one. Turns out we got it right and are happy to have you NOT on your back.

Speaking of physical stuff, you are taking your sweet time hitting those milestones there buddy. You are yet to turn over by yourself (we thought you did once when we weren’t in the room, but Ruby had a sinister smile on her face when we walked in). But honestly we’re not that concerned as you seem to be normal in just about every other way.

This “normal” prognosis was confirmed to us at your six-month check up. Really really really nice Dr. Peterson gave you a clean bill of health and just counseled us to be consistent with the tummy time and it’ll happen soon. Sadly, at this visit there was a new LPN and he didn’t give up the stats on your growth, except that you had only gained two pounds since your four month check up. Later, really really really nice Dr. Peterson mentioned that your head was in the 50th percentile which came as a surprise to me as it’s looking kinda big these days. I was happy to hear that news given the probability that at one day you’ll be bald like me and I’m just hoping that you’ve got a beautiful dome underneath those beautiful strands of hair.

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March 18, 2008

February 2008

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