Walking, Climbing, Getting into Trouble

This past week, Kai officially passed into toddlerhood. He's walking around with a stiff-legged, drunken sailor gait, keeping us in suspense with each step. Will he fall? Will he drop to his knees? No, he manages to stay up for ten, fifteen, twenty-five feet.

He's not content with just moving horizontally. He continues to scale chairs, boxes, our legs, the cat. This behavior is new for us as parents--Xander was not a scaler. I'm dreading the day when I look in and Kai has climbed the bookshelves.

Kai, at 14 months, pushed the chair over, scaled it,
and grabbed the skin cream bottle,
all before we noticed what was going on.

Xander and Kai in a bouncy chair that they are both way too big for.

Xander looks on (and Mommy does, too, with a camera)
as Kai  flings himself out of the Lego box after
a failed attempt to get up on the table.

We've quickly adjusted to Micah's new commute schedule. To avoid traffic, he leaves late and gets home late. We share morning childcare, and Micah drops Xander off at school. I race home at 5:00 to pick up Xander at school and relieve Clelia, the nanny, at 5:30. As long as I've got dinner prepped, I can get the kids fed, bathed, Kai asleep, and Xander in p.j.'s and ready for stories by the time Micah gets home at 8 pm. Two to three hours of driving a day for Micah is not great, but for now we're managing it.

Things get all messed up, however, when we don't get enough sleep, and that has been happening a lot lately.  We play musical beds, with both boys often ending up in our bed, snuggled up as close as humanly possible to me. I frequently jump ship and sleep in Xander's bed or on the sofa, unfairly leaving Micah to deal with the half-asleep squirming kids.

Observe Kai after a night of squirming and fussing:

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, gnawing on Mommy's finger.

Observe Micah and Lauren after a night of Kai squirming and fussing in between us:

Micah after no sleep. (Dramatization)

Lauren after no sleep (not a dramatization)

Speaking of sleep, it's 11:03 on Sunday night, and I will be closing this now.

Valentine's Day

Life was too hectic this week to plan for a proper Valentine's Day celebration. Fortunately, I did have some time to help Xander make hearts for everyone in his preschool class. When I dropped him off today, kids were making heart-shaped sugar cookies in preparation for the school party.

Xander with friends at school Valentine's Day Party

At dinner tonight, Xander told me the Question of the Day was "love." "What is love?" I asked? Yes. See Xander's response below.

What is love? Answered by 3 and 4 year olds.

Man, these QoD's are great. Yes, love is flowers and scissors and that's all I can think about.

And Kai? He's toddling/crawling/kneewalking all over the place. He has this crazy sideways crawl he does when he's playing "chase me!" Every day with him is a little Valentine.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Phase Changes

A quick lesson in parenting science. As noted in Wikipedia:

When a substance undergoes a phase transition (changes from one state of matter to another) it usually either takes up or releases energy. 

More specifically, when something melts, it takes up--you could say uses--energy.

Case in point: the phenomenon of baby melting. Infants as young as 6 months old have the ability to use up energy in a concentrated burst and melt out of a baby-handler's arms. Kai is an expert phase changer, and recently permitted us to catch him in action. Exhibit A: Kai as a solid state baby.

Exhibit B: Approximately 8 minutes later, after being told he could, under no circumstances, crawl out the front door, down the porch steps and onto the sidewalk while we were in the kitchen cooking breakfast, we observe phase change from solid to liquid state.

While the phase change is easily observed, the exact mechanism by which the child becomes physically impossible to hold is a mystery. This phase change is typically accompanied by a dramatic increase in weight, itself the topic of several ongoing experiments.

2012 Recap

Wow, a lot happened this year! Just as Micah and I were beginning to feel more like normal adults and less like toddler-handlers, young Kai Lucas came along. True to his nature, he knew what he wanted and there was no stopping him. Forty minutes after Micah and I got to the hospital, he arrived, and immediately, our lives were upended and sleep became a distant memory.

Kai Lucas Ledbetter, December 5, 2012 around 11 pm.

Xander meeting Kai for the first time.

 In January, we started Xander in preschool at Rockridge Little School (check out the blog to see what the kids do each day--question of the day is a favorite.) After a week or two of screaming, tearful goodbyes, he got in the swing of things and now absolutely loves school. I'm so proud of how much he's grown. I can see him transforming into a kindergartner right before my eyes.

Xander and his good buddy Kazuya making secret gifts for parents in late December.
(It was a candle holder. Very classy.)

Question of the Day is my favorite part of the daily blog.
Xander is clearly an introvert and knows it.

I was able to take four months of maternity leave and started back at work on a reduced schedule in mid-March. Unfortunately, February and early March were not kind to me. I had several minor infections and the week I was to go back I developed pneumonia. I tried to take it easy after that.

We started Kai in daycare in March, and it quickly proved to be a problem. He is persistent, and tells us exactly what he wants and doesn't want. He literally cried all day at daycare, only stopping to drink milk and sleep. After several weeks of this, in which he had some good days and some bad, we came to the mutual agreement with the daycare provider that he could not be in daycare. We started to search for a nanny share in May.

Finally, after two months of ad-hoc childcare, including two days with a nanny who ended up being allergic to our cat, in July we found Clelia, who has been a lifesaver for us. Kai took to her immediately, and he greets her with a big grin and open arms. He's learning Spanish (which means I'm learning it and Micah is relearning it). He shares his days with a little boy about a year older than him. Every so often, we come home and Clelia has cooked us chicken soup or beans for dinner.

Clelia and Kai at the Oakland Zoo

Clelia, Kai, and Kai's friend at the Temescal Library story hour

The rest of the year, well, you can go through the archives and see what we did. A trip to Portland to see family, several trips to Humboldt, awesome Halloween costumes, Xander turning four, a low-key Thanksgiving, Kai turning one, and a Christmas at home (so low-key I didn't write a post.)

And no retrospective of  2012 is complete without a list of the top whatevers. So I bring you 2012's greatest parenting moments:

10. Kai's giggly grin. 

9. Xander learning how to spell "on" and "off"

8. Xander says to us, "I love you to the moon and back!"

7. Kai starts saying "uh oh" and doesn't stop for four hours.

6. Kai jumps out of his high chair while on Mom's watch, but is OK, say the ER doctors.

5. Every morning the whole family, including the cat, end up in Mom and Dad's bed.

4. Xander reprimands Mom for yelling at Daddy to get her a towel after Kai spit up on his newly changed clothes. "Next time Mommy, you should just get the towel yourself."

3. Getting locked out of the house and asking Xander to go through the cat door to let us in.

2. Xander announces after a BM "Who wants to wipe my butt?"

And the best parenting moment of 2012:

1. Kai spits up on the floor. And licks it up before we can get to it.

Changing Lives

Living with two under five years old means there are always big changes underway.

Reading on the couch, a typical Saturday morning activity.

Kai: Here's what babycenter says  about thirteen-month old development:

• Picky eater (check)
• Waking up at night (check)
• Screaming (check)

There's good things, too. He's saying some words pretty clearly, but half are in Spanish so I don't always catch them. (Leche, purple, milk, gato are some recent ones.) He understands a lot, and has very expressive and dramatic body language. He will flop to the floor on his tummy to let you know just how much he doesn't want to give up that toy. He also is one of the best huggers I know, resting his head on your shoulder and squeezing with his little arms. He occupies himself by "reading" board books (we've had to hide the libary books, otherwise they get destroyed). He also has climbed onto chairs, low tables, and has tried to do pullups on our desks. And, drumroll....he's starting to WALK!
Here's the 13 to 18 month milestone chart.

Xander: Here's what babycenter says about four-year old development.

I've got to say, that this age so far is my favorite. I just spent an hour playing card games with him: Go Fish! then War (but we call it--hippy alert-- "The Contest Game"), and then UNO. Midway through, I thought, wow, I'm really enjoying his company. I truly like spending time with Xander, and not just because he's my son. (Parents, you must know what I'm talking about.)

I've also said this before, but Xander has a sharp sense of humor:

X throws a foam block at my head.
Me, angry: "Xander, don't throw blocks at my face. Are you going to do that again?"
Xander: "No, there's no more blocks nearby."

Happy New Year 2013

I realize I'm remiss in posting lately. Christmas, school break, New Years, wanting to get enough sleep, etc... typical excuses. Here's a short one.

For New Years Eve, we put Kai to bed at 7 p.m. and then built a fire in the fireplace. I made oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips, coconut flakes, and pecans (yum!) while Micah and Xander read books in front of the fire. We toasted the New Year (at 9 p.m.) with champagne, hot chocolate (Xander's beverage) and cookies fresh from the oven, while our bare feet got pleasantly warm in front of the fire. It was delightful.

The Ledbetter House is rockin on NYE 2013

Mommy & Xander after too much chocolate/champagne
Yes, that is a diaper on X's head, and yes this is not the first time
you have seen this happen.

The next day we got cracking on our resolutions.

Xander cleans his rug while Kai studies some Spanish.

And to end this post, a video demonstrating Kai's mad scaling skills. We are calling him Danger Bear.

 Wishing all a happy, healthy, and peaceful 2013.

Twins Separated at Birth

It's undeniable: Kai looks an awful lot like Xander did at his age. So much so, that Micah and I have a hard time figuring out who is who when looking at photos. It's even more challenging since Kai is wearing Xander's hand-me-downs. For example, if  (Great)Grandma Connie wasn't in this photo below, it would be hard for me to identify that 1-year-old as Xander. From the side, they look exactly alike to me.

Great-grandma Connie meeting one of her great-grandsons. 

Which brings me to my idea for this post, which will be slowly realized over the next week when I get some time: Recreate Xander's photos with Kai as the subject.

Until then, I leave you with a picture where they are very easy to distinguish. If only Xander would stop clowning around long enough for me to get a normal picture of him.

Family bath time is right up there with family meals, family story time, and family  bed.