That's what he said

I have to capture some funny things Gus is saying these days, so here goes:

• If we ask him to do something that he agrees with he says, "Oh, okaaaayyy." It's funnier when you hear him say it in his little chipmunk voice.
• If he thinks something is funny he says "That's too punnny" (funny) and if he thinks something is neat he'll say "That's too coooool."
  
• He likes to point things out to Cleo quite often. He'll say things like, "Keee-o, look at my choo choo!" or "See, Keee-o?" She isn't always paying attention, but I'm sure a time will come when she will.
  
• Right before Christmas Gus was taking his daily poop. He was using the wall as leverage for the deed (holding on to the wall while he pooped...hilarious) and Andy asked him if he wanted to go poop in the potty. To this Gus answered, "No! I want to go poop on the wall." Andy and I tried our best not to crumble in fits of laughter. I realize what he meant, but it came out sounding so gross. And someday he'll hate me for telling everyone about this.
• We're slowly but surely trying to potty train Gus. We don't want to rush him, so we're taking it slow. Basically we ask him quite often if he wants to use the potty. He usually says, "Oh, okaaaaay" but then when he realizes he has to actually use the potty, he backs out. Now he knows that he'll get an M&M if he uses the potty, so we often here this: "Mommy (or Daddy), I want a piece of candy." To which we reply, "Well, if you use the potty, you can get a piece of candy." To which he replies, "No, I don't want to use the potty! NO!!!!!!! But I want a piece of candy!" It's fun.
• The other day he was reading a Curious George book. There was a page where George was holding a bunch of balloons. He pointed to each balloon and said, "I want to be that balloon, that balloon, that balloon, that balloon and THAT balloon. Alright." Then he closed the book and moved on to the next thing.
• He calls our cats by name now. Ruby is "Rudy," Charlie is "Karlie" and Funny Face is "Punny Pace." He often chases Funny Face around the house b/c she is the nice cat and will often put up with his overbearing affection (he literally lays on her sometimes b/c he's trying to hug her...we have to tell him to be gentle). Needless to say, Funny Face runs away from Gus because of this and I often hear Gus walking through the house calling, "Punny Pace, where are you? Punny Pace!!!!!!!!!!!!" He will stand by the stairs leading to our basement and shout down the stairs "Punny Pace!!!!!!" It cracks me up.
  

Cleo is such a mover and shaker these days. She rolls all over the place. The other day she literally rolled over like 3 times in a row, and basically rolled across the rug. I can tell she really wants to crawl, which scares me. She's cutting teeth, too. We're trying to break her of the swaddle at night b/c she's moving around so much. It's harder on us, I think, b/c I know we're going to have some rough nights ahead trying to break her of it. She loves the baby jumper and the Exersaucer right now. She also loves her Bumbo seat. We started feeding her baby food just this week and so far so good. She has tried peas, squash and peaches mixed with her rice cereal. I'm still nursing her but I've decided to stop pumping at work, so I'm sure my supply will dwindle soon. I will miss elements of nursing, I know. But she is so distracted these days and has a hard time focusing on the task at hand so it takes forever. :)

Andy's company just went through another round of layoffs. No fun. He still has a job, thank God. But his position has changed and he'll have new accounts, probably mostly on the West coast. We'll see how it goes. It's so scary these days. I am supposed to find out later this month or early next what my new position will be with the restructuring of the School of Fine Arts. Considering all the craziness going on right now I'm happy that I'll at least have a job after all this.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention that Tom and Marisa announced they are expecting baby #2 sometime in August. Yahoo!

New Year's Resolutions

I'm taking a page out of Cherie's book and listing my resolutions for 2009 so I can put them on "paper" and keep track of them. Otherwise, I just have fleeting memories of them every once in awhile and I end up feeling terribly guilty for not applying myself! Here we go...

1) Exercise 2-3 times a week. I've love to do more, but this is realistic with two small kids.
2) Lose the remaining 10 lbs. of baby weight. This will basically put me back at my pre-Gus weight.
3) Go on more dates with Andy and work on not taking each other for granted.
4) Learn how to sew. I will enroll my Mother to teach me...she doesn't know this yet.
5) Take a knitting class. Try really hard not to give up like I did with my crochet class.
6) To quote Wayne Simien from a recent story in the Lawrence Journal World, Andy and I want to "increase our level of giving, not our level of living." Be more philanthropic.
7) Stop cussing...I've cut back quite a bit since having kids (listen to me, I sound like a smoker or something), but when I get mad, the profanity is my cartharsis. I can do it.

Happy 2009!

What a great holiday

Our holiday was really awesome. We had an early celebration the wknd before Christmas with my parents and sisters. Then we spent Christmas morning at home opening gifts with the kids and later drove down to Burlingame to spend the rest of the day with Mom and Dad. It was so relaxing and mellow. We loved it. We were also able to visit with some extended family Christmas night.

We left for Iowa City on Saturday, December 27, and made it there with no issues (the ice and snow was pretty bad in Iowa that day). We stayed in Iowa through January 1 and spent some great time with Dave and Sally, Lindsey and Anthony and Jenny, Aaron and Eli. The boys, Eli and Gus, absolutely had a blast with each other. I didn't realize how much fun they would have. When they weren't together they were looking for each other. Gus really misses Eli and has asked about him numerous times today. It makes me sad, b/c they really bonded. But hopefully we'll get to see them again sometime this summer. It was so great to spend some time with Aaron and Jenny, especially since we hadn't seen Aaron in a couple of years (he had been in Iraq for his second deployment and returned in August). We drove into Chicago for a day during our visit and visited with Grandma Benseman and Great Aunt Sue. We were also able to drive into the city to meet a friend for lunch in Wicker Park. I miss the city, but I realized that I am really happy living in Lawrence. It would be really hard to have two kids in the city, and I think pretty lonely. But it was awesome to visit again.

We all got some amazing gifts. Our families were so generous. Our main gift to each other this year was a flat screen tv to replace the box tv we have downstairs. It's not huge or fancy, but it's nicer than what we had. That's good enough for me! I also received a purse from Andy (he designed it with Kerry at the Plaza Lille store). It's awesome. Andy and I both got some Marc Jacobs perfume/cologne, so we'll smell yummy. :) It was pretty funny that we got Eli the same gift that Jenny and Aaron got Gus...band in a box. We started the open the gift to Gus and realized it sounded very similar to the gift we had just wrapped for Eli.

We also went on a double date with Jenny and Aaron on New Year's Eve. We went to an Italian restaurant in downtown Iowa City and had such a nice time. It was so nice to just get away without the kids and spend some quality time with Jenny and Aaron. I really wish they lived closer to us. Alabama is so far away, but it was so great to hang with them over the holiday.

The only bummer about our trip was New Year's day when Cleo suddenly started puking. We ended up taking her to the emergency room at the Iowa City hospital b/c she was puking, was super pale and pretty listless, although we also knew she was exhausted. I'm glad we went in, b/c she was pretty dehydrated and after guzzling some Pedialite, she seemed to rebound. They think it was either a weird fluke virus or a weird reaction to soy formula. So we're off the soy formula just in case that was the issue.

Here are some photos of the trip. Many more posted at our flickr account. Happy New Year! We are so thankful for a wonderful 2008 and are very hopeful for a fantastic 2009. It will be a fantastic 2009 if I can get my sweets-lovin' bottom back to the gym (and off the chocolate...).

And a Happy New Year...

A friend recently shared this poem by e.e. cummings. It is just beautiful. I have a feeling the poet wrote this to a love interest, but when I read it I think not only of Andy but of Gus and Cleo, too. It's so lovely and melancholy. Two of my favorite things.

Happy Holidays to you all. Here's to a 2009 full of peace, love, togetherness, good health, glad tidings, and new, wonderful things.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)

i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)

i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

-e.e. cummings

Update on the pukes and all that

So the night of my last post was terrible...and it's only gotten marginally better since then.

(Warning: I'm going to complain for a bit here but then I'll move on)

The night of my last post I got crazy sick with the same stomach flu the kids had and was up pretty much all night. Not fun...I repeat, NOT FUN. The next day I sent Gus to daycare b/c he was feeling better, but kept C. home with me b/c she was still pukey. Since that night I've felt better, but I haven't been getting much sleep b/c now Cleo has decided that although she feels better, she only wants to sleep for about 2-3 hours at a time, at best. And this is after I've bragged to all who can listen about how well she sleeps. She has been an amazing sleeper since she was about 4 weeks old, but I guess I'm being punished for talking about it out loud...it's only happened for the past three nights, but it's torturing me, b/c I was so accustomed to getting a full night's sleep. I pray to every god in the universe that she returns to her fabulous 10-12 hour sleep stretches very soon. I hope it is just because she is super hungry (i guess i would be hungry, too, if i had pooped and/or puked up everything for four days straight).

Oh, I forgot to throw in the 2+ hour doctor's appointment we went to on Tuesday. It took forever only to have the pediatrician tell us to "ride it out." I guess I'm glad we didn't have to medicate, but it's a bitch to hear that after waiting for so long. So many kids were in the waiting room, and Gus can only play with the few toys there and look at the fish in the tank a billion times before he goes crazy. It was not fun, and then b/c we got home super late, Gus would not nap. Ugh, remembering that day makes my head spin.

Fast forward to today...it's Thursday and although I'm exhausted, I think we're on the mend from the stomach crud. Andy has been out of town all week (did I mention that? that has added to my anxiety and whatnot...) and he returns tomorrow night. He feels terrible for being gone while we've been sick, but it's not his fault (obviously) and it's just the way it works sometimes. Although we do have a running joke that every time he goes out of town something like this happens. He was on a trip when I ended up in the emergency room twice (was that last year or the year before? time flies...) for the still unknown headache issues I had (was it a migraine? was it menigitis? they didn't do a spinal tap so we will never know, but i put my bets on a 2-day migraine b/c no one else in the house had issues). But I digress!

Today on my lunch break I was able to finish up a lot of shopping, so that feels good. I went to get my nephew a few albums for Christmas (he's getting a record player for Christmas), and I realized I hadn't shopped for LP's in so long (it used to be a fave pasttime of ours when we lived in Chicago). So I had to pick up a few for us! I grabbed Johnny Cash's Christmas album, a Queen album and an Elvis album from the 1970's. I'm psyched to put them on the player tonight. I think Gus will definitely dig the Elvis stuff, as he's really been getting into dance parties in our living room! God bless him for loving to dance, b/c we all know I do...

More later!

ek

'Tis the season to be pukey

So Cleo has been puking since last Thursday (about once a day, except for Friday). Gus sat down to eat a snack yesterday and immediately threw up in his bowl. My stomach has been a little funky for the last day, so I think we are officially suffering from some type of bug. We thought Cleo's throw up was simply a spitup issue, but I actually saw her do it this morning (in the carseat, getting ready to go to daycare), so now I know it's actually some nasty barf-o-rama. Poor girl. She cannot be gaining any weight these days. Before the pukes started she suffered from some diarrhea spell that is still somewhat lingering (Gus also caught that for a few days last week). So between changing about 3-6 diapers a day for the both of them (sometimes more for Cleo) and cleaning up puke, I'm super sick of the nasties, no pun intended.

Other than all that, the weekend was actually very nice. As Gus would tell you, we took the car to the car wash (the automatic car wash, and it scares Gus when it starts, so he has to hold someone's hand while we go through, but then he likes it and talks about it for days); Gus went to look at trains in North Lawrence with Andy (their new fave dad/son activity); and we drove around last night to look at Christmas lights (there was a neighborhood in West Lawrence that was AMAZING...almost all the neighbors joined together and strung white lights from tree to tree, across the street, so it was a huge maze of lights everywhere...so awesome. Even Andy and I "oooohed" and "aaaaahed" on that one). We also went to our friend's holiday party and exchanged White Elephant gifts. Andy got a COPS video on VHS and I received the 1994 Genius III version of Trivial Pursuit (both immediately went into our Goodwill bin...). Our friends all "adopted" a family this year and bought them all kinds of Christmas gifts, so that always feels very good.

Andy travels to Missouri and Texas this week, returning on Friday night. I wish he didn't have to travel so close to the holidays, but he just picked up new accounts in Texas so he needs to see those folks. We will go to my parents in B-game on Christmas day and then travel to Iowa probably a day later, staying for about a week. I think Gus and Eli (our nephew who lives in Alabama) will have a blast this year since they are both two. One year really will make a difference. Last year they were still pretty unsure of each other.

Gotta go...I think Gus just had another diaper blow out. Fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, here's a fun photo of Cleo and her friend, Zeke (he's about 1.5 months younger). He tried to make a move on Miss C. and she wasn't having any of it, as you can see.

Holiday photo outtakes (rejects)

Which photo is the winner this year for our holiday card? Who knows...we'll most likely go through yet another photo "session" tomorrow, since we couldn't find a winner out of the first two sessions! But we did get some fun outtakes, so enjoy! Oh, and more photos are updated on our flickr account.

Gus and Cleo and Charlie the Cat

The meltdown begins

My favorite photo...this is when Cleo's head started spinning!

Gus is out (and yes, he was holding Cleo up!)

Take two: second photo session (new outfits even!) and it was rocky from the start

Can you tell Gus isn't loving this experience?

This was near the end...now I know what parents go through trying to get the perfect photo!