Word Explosion

Right around 18 months, Marlo's language skills really started taking off. Before that point, I had considered posting a list of her words. I never got around to it, and now I'm not sure I could. She is adding vocabulary constantly, the words seemingly coming from nowhere. A lot of her words have to do with food. Her first complete sentence, uttered the other day, was "I want cheese." Today she said "cereal" for the first time, and fairly clearly too. In honor of the holiday goodies everywhere, she tries to say "chocolate." It's a little garbled, but I know what she means. As an aside, she's the only child I know who can become a complete mess by eating a single M&M.

Another fun language trick is announcing the word loudly. And repeatedly. We get a lot of "SNOW!!!!" Around age 2, also during the holiday season, Hayden would shout "IGHTS!!!" every time we drove past a house with Christmas lights, so it seems to be somewhat common. Marlo also says "TREE!!!" and that happens fairly frequently too.

Hayden was an early letter/number learner. I think he knew most of the letters by this age. Marlo gets that there are letters, but they are all apparently "D." She also likes to count, and it goes like this: "Two, Fwee, Two, Fwee, Two, Fwee."

In any case, she's a chatterbug. She talks all the time, sometimes intelligibly, sometimes not, but it's always fun. I'm going to attempt that word list now, even though I'll miss some and it will be long...but it will be fun to look at later.

Dexter, Mama, Dada, no, more, my, Hayden ("Daydee"), milk ("gaulk"), snack ("gack"), cheese, tree, down (which also means up), bottle ("bobble" and it means cup too), bath, book, TV, butt, eyes, belly button ("blah blah"-- said with tongue sticking out), baby, fish, snow, apple, bawk bawk, gobble gobble, ho ho ho, meow, moo, chocolate, cereal, shoes, socks, pants, shirt, hair, cracker, ball, beep, truck, choo choo, diaper, poo poo, potty, two, three, D, E I E I O, blanket (also pronounced "baby"), cold, light, spoon, bowl, all gone, bye bye, various people's names, backpack, coat, boots, hat, toes, owie, turkey, berry, please, thank you, excuse me ("excuse you"), paper, hot, brrrr, towel, door, block, stay, high chair, banana, Stella (all dolls are called "Stella," and she even says it like Marlon Brando), where are you? ("Are you?"), bus...

Happy Birthday Hayden!

Hayden turned 6 on October 18th. This year, he had 2 Saturdays of celebration. The first was cake and presents with family; the second was pizza and fun with friends.

The big gift from us was a real telescope. Hayden has been fascinated with space for almost 2 years, and it seemed like an appropriate gift. We were lucky to have clear skies, decent weather, and Jupiter nice and bright in the sky. Hayden got to see Jupiter's moons! Of course, it has rained pretty much every night since then, so we're waiting for a chance to look at the moon.

This year was the first time I agreed to have a "kid party" at our house. I didn't do anything elaborate. They decorated some cookies, ate some Papa Johns, played a simple game, and beyond that, basically ran around. Hayden said it was a "crazy" party, and that he hoped he could always have crazy parties from now on. Hmmm.

Beyond the festivities, though, it's hard to believe he is 6! I've done my best to document and savor each year, and we certainly have the pictures to prove it. Still, at the risk of being cliched, it has gone really fast! Happy birthday, buddy!

Kicking it

The current sport of the season is soccer. It's about as popular as baseball with Hayden, which is saying something. He's fairly motivated...when he remembers to go after the ball. Sometimes he gets so caught up in the excitement of everything that he forgets to actually play. Here he is playing defense, jumping up and down while he watches the game.


During the most recent game, he was occasionally somewhat aggressive. Perhaps aggressive is not the right word. Maybe competitive? Some of the kids on the other team were a little scarily aggressive. One kid stood in the opposing goal waiting for the ball to come near him so he could score. He did this even when his own team was on the other side of the field. Ah, U6 soccer.
At this point, Hayden is claiming that he would rather play indoor soccer this winter than hockey. Considering he spent at least half of hockey sprawled on the ice, this may be a good thing.

Back to School

This week, Hayden joined the ranks of school-kids. Although he's been in plenty of preschool, it's a whole different experience to get on a bus every morning and go to school without Mom or Dad around.

He's been excited for Kindergarten all summer. Picked out his backpack, got his school supplies, memorized his cafeteria PIN. When I woke him up for the first day of school (and there's not a day that goes by that I'm not thankful for being in a "late start" school), he jumped out of bed saying, "It's school today! My first day of school!" I got him fed and ID'ed with his little laminated tag, and we headed out to the bus stop.


All was well until the bus got there. He's ridden a bus before, but I think he was freaked out by it all the same. He just kind of stood there until I prodded him to climb aboard! Then he just stood by the driver until the driver got him to find a seat.


After school reports were mostly positive. He had a new best friend with whom he shared Knock Knock jokes. He liked his teacher. He colored in rectangles and a picture of himself. He heard a book and sang a song. Lunch, however, was a downer--he misunderstood that he was supposed to get "school lunch" and so only had his snack to eat at lunch. Needless to say he was grouchy until I got some food in him. The rest of the week has gone smoothly. According to Hayden, the only "low" since the lunch debacle was that he dropped and broke a crayon, and in the act of picking up the crayon, ripped his little ID/bus tag.

He's a little tired--it's a big change to be gone all day, every day. But overall he seems to be enjoying it, and he has a lot of stories (and bad jokes) that I love to hear. I have volunteered to help out in the classroom here and there, so I can't wait to see for myself what it's like. Marlo sure misses her brother though! She's been cranky during the day until he gets home!

At the Cape

We just got back from a week of vacation on Cape Cod. We rented a house a short walk from the beach in a quiet neighborhood. The beach was kid heaven. Hermit crabs at low tide, calm water to splash in, a swimming platform, shells. Hayden was especially fascinated by the crabs. They were easy to pluck out of the clear water, and we even found a few that were almost too tiny to be believed. Marlo was most interested in the sand. I've never seen anything hold her attention for so long. She'd dig and pour, and dig some more. She picked up and dropped shells. She dumped sand in boats and buckets. She was so absorbed that all I did was sit and watch.

The house itself was a great find. We had a little backyard, and the kids could burn off steam or enjoy one of the many projects organized by their cool aunt Rachel. There was a fair amount of chaos of course--a 5 year old, 3 year old, and toddler will do that--but it was a manageable level of chaos, and well worth the fun everyone had.

For the grown-ups, there was seafood and a lot of it. It's possible we ate seafood every day. The fried clams...I could have eaten those daily for sure, and same goes for the rich New England clam chowder. We went out fishing one afternoon and brought back more fish than we could eat. Even Hayden had some of that fish; apparently it's more appealing to him if someone he knows catches it.

It was a restful, wonderful week. Both Ben and I agreed that we could live there. Now all we need is a couple of million dollars.

Batter up!

The baseball season has come to an end. Hayden has always liked baseball. He could hit a tossed (plastic) ball at 2. He cried at the end of his YMCA t-ball league last year. This year was a bit more realistic, at least as far as t-ball goes.

Hayden played in the Hamel baseball league. Hamel is basically a farm town in the suburbs, and the baseball league has a bit of a small town feel since it's surrounded by corn fields. It was a long season--from mid-May to mid-July. He even had a real team name (the Tigers), a jersey (a Tigers t-shirt with his name on the back), and a hat.

It was substantially more impressive than his hockey season. And cheaper too. Thanks to his cousins, we got free baseball pants and socks, a mitt, and a gift of real baseball batting gloves. And baseball warranted at least something of an attention span. At least while batting. Fielding...a different story. Hayden was usually the one kid not in "ready-position." He liked to spin around and twirl in the outfield. When playing a base position, he was mostly interested in reading the names off the opponents' jerseys. But he loved it. He loved going, he loved playing, he loved the after-game snack. And I preferred watching baseball over watching hockey. This may be insulting to native Minnesotans, but watching kids stuffed in equipment inside a cold ice rink has nothing on baseball on a sunny summer day.

After the last real game of the season, the kids got medals. GOLD medals. This last bit is important, as gold is MUCH better than any other color to a 5 year old. There's no doubt he'll be signing up for baseball again. The next experiment is soccer.... we'll keep you posted.

Backyard Nature

So we got some cheap goldfish for our pond. It was a pretty exciting event, and well worth the 4 bucks in goldfish. A few of the goldfish met their doom in the pond's pump, however...their bodies were discovered when Ben tried to fix the malfunctioning pump. Oh well. 4 bucks. Cycle of life and so forth. Other goldfish were not as foolhardy and wisely remained hidden in the lilypads until we coaxed them out with the skimmer. A few more like to hide out under the waterfall. Unfortunately, with the pump not working, I'm not sure how long the remaining survivors will hold out. It's getting a little stagnant in there without the waterfall. We may be making another trip to Petco in the near future. Still, it's the longest I've ever kept goldfish alive.

Goldfish carcasses aside, Hayden has really enjoyed watching them. They are amazingly fast little swimmers, but skittish. Like I said, they prefer to hide. He named all of them "Ace" for awhile. Then he kept changing their names.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the other frequent inhabitants of our yard are turtles. I saved one from the lawnmower a couple of weeks ago. Mostly we've found babies, but recently Hayden spotted a big one from our sun porch so we all went out to see it. Hayden figured it was the momma. I have no idea how you tell the difference between girl turtles and boy turtles...so momma it is. We found another one (or the same one?) in the front yard too, so we appear to have a thriving turtle population that may or may not dine on the dwindling goldfish population.

I finally found the section in the library on animals, so we'll have to learn about our wild neighbors and report back. It will be a while, because today at the library Hayden was more interested in books about space and dinosaurs, so information about turtles (and toads and fish) will have to be shelved until another day.

Our new town

One of the criteria we had for moving to the suburbs is that we still needed a town. Mini-malls don't count. And the town had to be close enough to walk or bike to. We wanted coffee shops, restaurants, and ice cream. Book stores are nice too. I wanted my kids to have a community that had some character, rather than just a local McDonalds or Applebees (don't even get me started on Applebees).

Our new town, Wayzata, actually has a rich history. I know about its past as a tourist destination in the late 19th and early 20th century. However, I also found out its livelihood was maintained through the trade of ginseng in the mid-19th century. Wayzata was an important train hub (and still gets a lot of train traffic passing through...we can hear the whistles) in the late 19th century, and also supported steamboat travel across Lake Minnetonka to other vacation sites along the lake. You can read more about the history here if you are interested.

A couple of weeks ago, I took the kids to explore the town. We drove this time, since it was close to Marlo's nap, but once there, we walked up and down Lake Street. We found the depot (a big hit with Hayden who loves trains), and the beach and playground. The playground also had "bird hotels" that entertained us for awhile. We watched boats on the lake for a bit, and walked along the docks. After the playground, I let Hayden buy a book at the bookstore, and of course we had to get treats at Caribou. Hayden would have stayed longer, but Marlo was ready to sleep.

I am sure we will spend a lot of time in Wayzata this summer. Especially if there's ice cream to be had.

Happy Birthday Marlo!

Yesterday, Marlo turned 1.

It's the milestone of milestones. All week I've been having flashbacks to last year. A year ago, I went to the clinic for a routine appointment. As it had with Hayden, my blood pressure had suddenly jumped up. However, with Hayden, I was allowed to go home on bed rest. This time, I was sent directly to the hospital.

I spent a lot time getting tests and monitoring. I was already in early labor, so my labor was "augmented" rather than strictly induced. Labor was easy this time around. Marlo was born late afternoon/early evening on the 24th, perfect and beautiful with a full head of hair. I was delivered by my regular OB (just luck of the draw--she happened to be on call). Everyone reading this blog knows the rest of the story. I ended up bleeding buckets (reason still unknown), and was eventually taken to OR and anesthetized and transfused. I spent 3 days in ICU recovering before being transferred to the regular maternity recovery room.

I had a pretty rough go with Hayden, but this topped it. The ICU nurse told me they only see 1 or 2 maternity patients down there per year. However, since I spent most of my pregnancy in a haze of anxiety (shingles, antibodies, hernias, you name it), I was mostly just relieved to have a healthy baby.

Anyway, the memories of a year ago are pretty vivid, given the circumstances. And because the memories are still so strong, the past year seems to have gone extra fast. My little 7 lb 14 oz baby is now walking and starting to talk. Sleepy at birth (she was jaundiced), she still is a good sleeper...but incredibly active when awake. Happy temperament then, happy temperament now (with just a touch of attitude for good measure).

My 1 year old thoroughly enjoyed her birthday. There was cake, after all--shaped like a caterpillar. And wrapping paper, balloons, and time to play outside. She was a little mystified by everyone singing "Happy Birthday," though.

She loved all of her presents. Ben and I got her her own little chair. We got the same thing for Hayden when he turned one and we were amazed by how much he loved it. She had recently been climbing into his chair, and so was pretty excited to get her own. She liked to sit in her chair and look at birthday cards! Hayden got her a book, always a hit, and from family and friends she received many fun and thoughtful gifts--Baby Stella and accessories, a toy flying saucer (Hayden LOVED this one!), clothes, and a play sink.

It's been an incredible first year with her in our family--and we are already enjoying the second.

Happy Birthday baby Marlo!

Preschool Graduation!

Today was Hayden's preschool graduation, and his last day at St. John's. There were caps (cardboard) and diplomas. Every kid got a stuffed dog with the kids' and teachers' signatures. There was even a program which listed each child's future occupation. Hayden, of course, plans on being an astronaut. One classmate is going to be a "mad kitty." Another, an architect. There were several ballerinas, a Jedi knight, a baseball player, a handful of Moms and Dads, policemen and firemen, and one judge on American Idol. We also got to see where all of the graduates will be attending Kindergarten. Hayden, now an urban expatriate, was the only representative of his new school. That was kind of sad, as he has a lot of nice friends at St. John's we will miss. But what do I know? Here's what Hayden has to say about preschool, in his own words:

His favorite thing about preschool: "making friends."

Favorite thing to do: "play, play, play."

Best friend: "Thomas"

What he will miss the most: "magnet animal builders."

Favorite thing to play outside: "Power Rangers"

Favorite thing to eat: "pizza"

Favorite song at school: "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Because it was so short."

What he is looking forward to in Kindergarten: "show and tell"

What he thinks he'll learn about in Kindergarten: "space"

Best part about summer vacation: "break from school."
Me: "I thought you loved school." Hayden: "But Mama, I don't get to sit down that much!"

Go West

Well, we've left the city. I swore up and down countless times that I would never leave the city. Famous last words, I suppose. We lived there 12 years--2 in an apartment, 4 in a condo, and 6 in our old house. A part of me will always be in Minneapolis and will always be urban. I may have been raised in the suburbs, but the city felt like home.

And now, here I am, back in the suburbs! But although I worried and wondered whether my heart would break upon suburbanizing, so far so good. Our new house is beautiful, and although we are in the suburbs, it seems really like we have found a little half-acre nature oasis. Already, Hayden and I have spotted deer in the front yard and 2 baby turtles in our pond. The neighbors tell me there are also foxes, and I have seen a ton of hawks. Our house seems covered in bird nests (I've counted 3), and the frogs sing like crazy at night. It's weirdly private--no airplane noise, no neighbors in underwear. We can hear the nearby highway sometimes, and also the sound of a train whistle.

The best part has been seeing the kids in the yard. Hayden loves the wildlife. He's named the 2 baby turtles Snoopy and Max and he loves to watch them nibble at the moss on the edge of the pond. Marlo has a lot of soft grass to toddle around in, and lots of room to roll her beloved balls ("baaa!" "baaa!").
We're a week into suburbia...we'll see how it grows on us!

Look Who's Walking!

The first steps have started---right around 10 and a half months. She's still a little tentative, though. It's been tricky to get on video. Every time I get out the camera she drops down and starts to crawl instead.


She's made it 5-6 feet at times. Like her brother did, she walks a little like the Frankenstein monster--arms straight out (or up). Her main technical difficulties include A) squeezing her eyes shut when she gets going (always problematic) and B) letting her big head get ahead of her tiny legs so that she pitches forward.

It's a lot of fun to watch her walk, but also a little sad. Her babyhood seems to be going by even faster than Hayden's did.

Outside Time

We've actually had some warm days. Shorts weather, even. The day documented here was borderline--not quite summery, but warm enough to play indefinitely in the sunshine. The backyard playset (which will make the move to our new house) is the outside toy of choice. For Hayden, the playset is a fort, rocket, machine, ship, and planet. Marlo pretty much only uses the swings. She likes to be pushed, but she's also happy to literally hang in the swing and look at her toes (see picture above).


We're all very happy to get outside again. Both kids come in from outside appropriately messy. It's been dry and dusty, so the dirt gets kicked up easily. And we have a lot of dirt patches, thanks to the resident mutt. Marlo will crawl through and touch anything, so she always has dirt caked under her fingernails and stains on her knees. It's not unusual to see some specks of leaves on her lips after she snacked on them.



When we move, we'll have a nice big backyard. Our yard now is decent for a city lot, but our new house has a big sloping yard with adjacent woods and wetlands. The property itself has a decorative pond (a "water feature"). The current homeowner told us it's a favorite spot to catch frogs. So, I imagine I'll have a lot of outdoor adventures to blog about this summer once we are settled in. When we visited the new house on Saturday, Hayden took off running through the yard, thrilled with all the space and already imagining sledding down the little hill. The playset will have some competition at the new house, but I think it will still be a family favorite.