July 18, 2010: Party in Vacaville

We took a drive to Vacaville today to meet up with a college friend of mine and celebrate her son’s first birthday. Lindsay and her family moved to Vacaville three weeks after Darren was born…crazy! I haven’t seen Lindsay since my graduation in 2005, so it was fun to meet up and introduce our little families AND catch up with each other.
(Happy Birthday Darren!!)
It was a HOT day in Vacaville, so the fact that it was a pool party made it that much more fun. Carter and Cohen had a grand time splashing each other in the kiddie pool…okay, really it was Cohen who was splashing Carter and Carter was freaking out. Daddy cooled the storm by taking Carter to the big pool with him while Cohen and Mommy hung out in the shade.


Darren and Cohen were adorable as they tried to “play” together. Darren was quite assertive and Cohen was a little bummed that he was getting bossed around by someone smaller. They spent a good half hour trying to get a water bottle away from one another. Too cute!
("I'll trade you your sippy cup for that water bottle")
("Or I can just have both")
("Nope, Cohen, you keep the sippy cup, I want the water bottle!")
("I don't think so. I'm outta here!")

After the pool party we hit the outlet mall. It is a fabulous outlet mall with a lot of higher end stores…however, we only made it to a few because the weather was sooooooooooo hot that even shopping wasn’t much fun. Can you believe that?!

July 17, 2010: Just a Haircut??

Carter is an interesting little boy. He is the size of an average 4 year old boy and has the language ability of a 5 year old, easily. We often get comments about it when people find out he is only 2. Carter also has a thirst for learning that is almost insatiable. Come on, what two year old knows the different stages of a moon and can explain it to you when he sees it in the sky? However, along with the good comes some “strange” qualities. We often joke that he has OCD and I thought it would be interesting to see what the “signs” are. So I googled “OCD signs in kids” and I came across:

Among kids and teens with OCD, the most common obsessions include:
- fear of dirt or germs ***
- fear of contamination ***
- a need for symmetry, order, and precision ***
- religious obsessions
- preoccupation with body wastes
- lucky and unlucky numbers
- fear of illness or harm coming to oneself or relatives
- preoccupation with household items ***
- intrusive sounds or words

Interesting, to say the least! As indicated by check marks, Carter exhibits 4 “obsessions.” He HATES and CANNOT stand to be dirty or near anything dirty. Example: He and Nama walked out to get the newspaper and Nama asked him to pick it up for her and his response was “I can’t, it’s dirty.” And he promptly walked away. Second, his foods ABSOLUTELY may not touch each other on his plate or eating is out of the question. Example: Gravy on Mashed Potatoes = total meltdown. He is constantly placing things in order: making line, grouping things together, insisting his blocks be a certain space away from one another, etc. Lastly, the kid is obsessed with cleaning and household items. Dust pans and brooms, coasters, candle sticks (which he lines up by height and an equal distance away from each other), to name a few.

So while we don’t honestly think he has OCD, it was interesting to see what the common obsessions are and how many of them are similar to Carter. Luckily he isn’t afraid of dirt and contamination to the point where it impedes on his daily functioning…at that point, we’ll start to get concerned. For now, we’ll just keep this in the back of our minds as we watch him grow and mature a little more.

Take the picture below as a prime example of Carter’s strange habits:

He needed his entire body, including feet and eyes, to be covered in order to let John cut his hair. The clippings from his hair were“making me dirrrrrty daddy!”

Enough Said :)

July 9-11, 2010: Trip Back North

We made the first of our two scheduled trips to Sandpoint this weekend. Our friends Dani and Kirk got married at Schweitzer and nothing would keep us from attending that wedding…not even a summer in San Francisco.

We had an early flight out of Oakland so we spent the night at a hotel near the airport. The boys passed out on the drive over and didn’t make a peep throughout setting up beds and such. They can be angels…at times.

(Sleepy boys!)

We landed in Oakland at 9am and hopped into a rental car and were off. Our first stop was Sacred Heart’s NICU. We haven’t visited in awhile so I thought it would be fun to bring Cohen in and say “hi”. We were lucky enough to see one of our favorite nurses, Jenn! She was always so upbeat and happy every time she had Cohen, and her enthusiasm really calmed me down. She could not believe how big Cohen was or how great he looked. We also got to see another nurse whom Cohen had…I can’t remember her name because we only had her twice…but I remember her because she has three little boys and is about my age. She, too, was impressed with Cohen. But above all, the best moment was when Dr. Bodenstein came from around the corner and saw the little blue-eyed boy running up and down the hall and immediately knew it was Cohen. He knelt down and Cohen ran right to him and gave him a big bear hug. It was so adorable!! Dr. B will always have a special place in our hearts and we LOVED seeing him. He was impressed with Cohen’s size, but not too impressed that we haven’t figured out his digestive issues yet. Hopefully his phone calls get some more people on board!

(Cohen and Jenn!)

(Cohen and Dr. B!)
Saturday morning was beautiful and required a trip on the boat. We took Papa Doug’s boat to Dover and ate breakfast at a cute little restaurant on the water. Carter was ecstatic to be on a boat, but Cohen was not so much a fan of the wind on his face.

(Daddy and Coey on the boat)

(Coey on the boat)
(Boys walking to breakfast from the boat)

(Mema and Carter on the boat)

On Saturday night we headed to the Tuott-Steinhorst wedding and it was amazing. They were married on top of Schweitzer and we all had to take the chair lift up. So fun! We left the boys with Aunt Mary and Uncle Doug (THANK YOU!!)…and had fun evening with each other and friends.

Sunday morning we had a lovely breakfast with our friend Margi and belly of triplets. My, she looks AMAZING!! She is well on her way to the third trimester where most of the fears of premature babies subside somewhat. We are pretty sure she can make it to 36 weeks, because she's a rockstar! After breakfast we headed out to the Farm with Mema and Papa Doug. Carter got some quality horse ride and tractor ride time in with Papa Doug and Coey slept in the car

(Family pic at the farm)

(Horsey ride with daddy and papa doug)

(Tractor Time! Carter loves Papa's tractor!!)

(Coey slept through the entire farm visit)

Before we headed back to the airport we visited our friends the Reinkes in Spokane. They welcomed a new baby boy this week, Griffin Richard, so we had to go see the new baby and big brother Kason. The boys went straight to "The Diner" and started playing as if no time had lapsed between our last playdate and today. It was so cute to watch the three older boys play. Pretty soon Griffin will be joining in on the fun and Stef and I will have our hands full!

(Kason was a very cute welcoming party!)
(Griffin's balloon was a huge hit with the big boys...we won't mention whose two year old managed to pop a hole in it with the handy manny screwdriver...whooops!)

(The mama's and their boys!)
(Griffin and Mama Stef!..He is soooo tiny!!)
(Cohen and Kason = BFF)

(Kason pushing Cohen)

(Carter pushing Kason)

(Kason pushing Carter)

(Cohen pushing Kason!)

(The infamous diner...John is still trying to figure out if we have room for one in our teeny tiny house!)

We had a fantastic weekend and we can't wait for more fun when we come back for John’s high school reunion!

July 10, 2010: 17 Months!

Cohen is 17 months old today. I know I say this every month, but really…where did the time go??!! I can’t believe he is almost a year and a half! It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating his first birthday. Cohen’s stats are only approximate because he has not had a doctor’s visit all month…HOORAY!! I weighed him on our scale and he weighs 23lbs! What a big boy he is. He is pretty tall now too but I won’t have an accurate measurement until his 18 month appointment. He has 4 1/2 teeth, as his upper right lateral tooth is making a slow but steady appearance. Because we still adjust Cohen’s age, his milestones and acquired skills for this month are more closely related to those a typical 14 month old will present with.

Motor skills wise, Cohen is a confident walker and can even vary his speed. I wouldn’t go so far to say that he can run as it looks more like someone walking quickly on hot coals =) He swings his arms and twists his body for fun. He has mastered emptying containers filled with objects and also dropping items into an empty container. Within the last few days he is becoming more confident in his ability to go down stairs backward (on his belly and with supervision of course).

He loves playing peek a boo, and is still obsessed with carrying large objects around the house. He can point to his nose and his mouth if you ask him where those body parts are. He loves listening to music and if the beat is one he likes he’ll even dance to it. He can now wave and say “bye-bye” together…though his wave is upside down and it looks more like a ‘come here’ gesture. Also, Cohen has started to have clear ideas about what he wants and will be persistent in trying to achieve them…even if it means throwing himself on the ground to let you know that he is not happy. He easily get upset when frustrated…but with the emergence of his signing abilities we are hopeful that improving his communication skills will help alleviate some of this.

In addition to our ongoing efforts of working on sign language with Cohen, and Cohen FINALLY reciprocating, this month has been a big talking month for Cohen. His word list has grown from the short list at 16 months. Though the actual number of words has not increase too significantly, it is the fact he is starting to make hard sounds when speaking his words, and also with is baby talk, that is the most significant change from last month. The words from last month are much more clear and definite in annunciation. In addition to his words from last month (Mama, Dada, no, that and dog (which sounded like “dooo”)), he can now say doggie (very clearly), apple, ball, and baba (bottle). He also says “Boop-Boop” which is totally adorable because “Boop-Boop” is what Carter referred to his blanket as when he was beginning to talk and is also what Carter refers to his blankets at to this day. So it is cute that Cohen picked that up from him. He’ll go around yelling/whining “boop-boop” and once he finds it or we give it to him he snuggles his head right into it. Pretty stinkin’ cute! He is starting to attempt to repeat things we say to him, and now calls Auntie Libby, “Bibby.”

An emerging change is Cohen’s new found confidence in his role as baby brother. Cohen is most definitely the dominant of the two boys. No joke. He bosses Carter around without saying a word, and instinctively knows which buttons of Carter’s to push. Fun times, for sure. (insert eye roll here) He is Mr. Mischievous too. He will find the only thing that he shouldn’t play with, and try playing with it. He takes off with things like he is being chased, and he loves to hide. Everything that we say “no” to has the most allure…and I feel like we are “redirecting” Cohen every 5 minutes.

Another big milestone is Cohen’s appreciation of tested his boundaries. It is evidence by tame incidents like as he is throws his food off of the highchair and we tell him “stop”, he will look at us and slowly drop something over the edge just to see what our reaction is. To not so tame: The other night Nama was holding him and he had a plastic dinosaur toy in his hand…and Carter was standing underneath him…Cohen looked at Carter’s head, looked at me, looked at Nama, and the chucked the dinosaur down onto Carter’s head. It was this incident that shed additional light on the difficulties of raising a preemie. While the behavior was clearly purposeful, being that his development is only 14 months old it doesn’t really make sense to put him in timeout. We are still unclear with how to deal with situations like that. For now, we comfort Carter and try to ‘explain’ to him that Cohen did not do it on purpose (even though we know he did…) and that Cohen is too little to go to timeout (Carter was crying that Cohen should go to timeout for hitting him…ugh.)

On a positive side, Cohen is a fabulous “sharer.” If you ask him to share whatever is in his hand with mommy, daddy, nama, or ggpa, he’ll hand it right over with a huge smile on his face. However, if you ask him to share with Carter he’ll motion like he is handing it to Carter but as soon as Carter goes in for the take, Cohen will yank his hand back and take off. Which then escalates in to a full blown baby fight: Carter chases Cohen…ends up pushing him, Cohen YELLS at Carter and pushes back…and this goes back and forth before an adult has to break it up. Welcome to the next 16 years of our lives!

We are so proud of the progress Cohen has made over the last 4 months. We are anxiously looking forward to his next developmental assessment to show off how his communication has grown leaps and bounds…no more 4th percentile for this baby (at least that’s what I’m assuming!).

July 7, 2010: School's IN for the Summer!

Well, low and behold, the lack of schedule and consistency has done Carter (and Mommy and Daddy) in. We enrolled Carter in preschool two days a week for the remainder of our time here in San Francisco. Talk about lucking out…the daycare 1 block from my mom’s house happened to have a part time opening this summer. We jumped at the chance. While Carter has enjoyed spending time with his daddy and brother, the lack of structure was making him crazy.

Today was his first day at the new school and he didn’t skip a beat. He walked in, put his coat and boop-boop away, said hello to the teachers and was off. Hopefully the exposure to structure and kids his age help calm him down. It has been a wild few weeks, to say the least!

(Cop Car Pedal Car = Instantly Happy Kid)

July 2-4, 2010: The 4th & a visit from Uncle Doug

Uncle Doug came to visit for the weekend! He has been to San Francisco before, but has not been able to do any “touristy” activities. The goal was to do everything tourist in two days…boy were we in for an activity filled weekend!

1: Walk the Golden Gate Bridge:
John, Doug and the boys walked across the Golden Gate Bridge (aka “the big orange bridge”). It was a beautiful San Francisco morning and they all had a blast!

(Beginning the walk)

(Middle of the walk)

(More middle of the walk)
(End of the walk!)

(Meeting mommy on the other side!)
2. Marin Headlands:
After walking the bridge, we got into the car and drove out to the Marin Headlands. It is a neat area because there are all sorts of hidden military structures. Uncle Doug, Carter, and John had fun walking around on the structures while Cohen took at nap in the car with Mommy.
(Daddy and Carter at the headlands)
3. Chinatown & Fortune Cookie Factory:We took Uncle Doug to Chinatown and to see where Fortune Cookies are made. The factory itself is in a really sketchy alley, but it was in the morning and we felt it would be the best/safest time to go :)

(mommy's profile and the fortune cookie lady)

(Hard at work)

4. Fisherman’s Warf:
We walked around Fisherman’s Warf before it was time to get on the boat to Alcatraz.
5. Alcatraz:
This was quite the activity. Not only was it a boat ride, but we also got to walk around the prison grounds and the prison itself. All of the boys thought this was pretty neat. Carter especially liked “playing” in the prison cells. He wasn’t too interested in sitting on the potty “but I don’t have to go potty mommy”…but once he saw that it was filled with concrete, he thought it looked like a good idea.
(They're on a BOAT!)
(The family hanging out)

(Coey loving his new mode of transportation!)
(Family photo in the cellblock)

("I see you oberthere, I mean, frew here mommy")

("Peekie Boo!!)
(Mommy showing Carter that it is okay to sit on this potty)
(Like this, mommy?!)
6. Union Square:
We took Uncle Doug to Union Square to show him what real shopping is all about. We only went to a few stores, but we managed to find some great deals!
7. Fireworks
We went on a family dinner cruise for the 4th of July. It was totally fun and the boys love mingling and showing off their dance moves for all of the guests. The cruise took us around Alcatraz and to Sausalito and then stopped in the middle of the bay so that we could watch the fireworks. In true San Francisco fashion, the fog was dense and at times all we could see were the bottoms of the display. It was a neat experience.

(pre-funking the cruise...Coey was having a blast!)

(The Hawkins Brothers!)
(Family Photo before the cruise)

(Cohen playing peekie boo on the boat)
7. Lombard Street:One of the last tourist destinations we saw was Lombard Street. It took us about 65 minutes of waiting in line before it was our turn to drive down the “most crooked street in the world” It was definitely one of those, do it once and never have to do it again type activities. One thing is for sure, we will never move to Lombard Street…what a nightmare to get in and out of your driveway
(Making our way down...)

We had an amazing weekend and were so happy Uncle Doug came down to play!