Wed 27 Jan 2010

C’mon, baby!

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We’re starting to get really excited, and let’s be honest, really freaked about about this coming baby. After feeling like I’ve been pregnant *FOREVER*, it’s actually time to start wrapping our heads around having a fifth person in the house! In the last week I’ve “progressed”, in doctor talk from {2, thick, high} to {3, 50%, -2} and gained an extra delightful 4 pounds (putting me at a whopping 150, the most i’ve ever ever ever weighed and ever hope to weigh). I’ve washed the swaddling blankets, the car seat cover, the bouncy seat and the bassinet. Brought out a set of gender neutral pajamas. Bought some newborn diapers. We’ve decided that the only place we can have a changing table on the first floor where Geert can’t climb it or throw everything off of the shelves is the entryway, since we can gate it off. The bassinet is on wheels so we can maneuver it around the first floor to try to find a spot for naps. We’re nervous about both the bouncy seat and the bassinet with Geert – i can realistically see him climbing up the side of the bassinet to peer inside and pulling it over on himself, tiny bundle inside, or being a bit too aggressive with the bouncy seat. We’re thinking Leva might think it’s a doll and want to swaddle it and carry it around herself, so we’ve started priming her with “only mommy and daddy hold the baby” or “don’t pick up the baby without mommy or daddy”. To which she usually replies “I will hooooold it and huuuuuug it, okay?” Perhaps the safest place for the little pootie will be in the baby bjorn, strapped out of harm’s way to a parent. At a height. Perpetually. After all this waiting, we’re guessing “it” will finally be here in the next week or two! Maybe I should pack my bag… Hooray!!

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Tue 12 Jan 2010

Playtime

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I’m sure there are parents and psychologists alike out there who will think we’re painfully obvious, but watching your kids grow into two such different people, even though they came from the same gene pool and are raised in the same psychosocial setting is VERY INTERESTING! Our kids are just so so different, that we oftentimes sit down just to go down lists to prove to ourselves exactly how different they are. First, and most obviously, they look different. Now, I remember being in the sixth grade and having my brother come get me for his fourth grade science class and standing in front of the room next to him, only to hear crickets chirp. The kids were supposed to be finding similarities between siblings for their “genetics class”, and for Peter and I, they found none. So Leva’s dark blond and Geert’s brunette. She has big wide blue eyes and he has squinty brown ones. She’s pale and pink and he’s olive toned. Okay.

But that’s just the beginning! Their temperaments are completely different. Leva doesn’t really get upset about much. She watches the world go by with this wide-eyed wonder and analyzes it almost as though she’s not a part of it. Even when disciplining her, she’ll go sit in time out, not upset at all, and hum to herself until it’s time to get out, much to our frustration. Geert gets mad about EVERYTHING, especially when tired. Although he can be sweet and funny and snuggly (which Leva almost never is), when he’s in a bad mood, any little thing from taking a toy to picking him up to trying to feed him something he doesn’t want can result in this manly grunt-scream and quite often, lashes. He’ll hit, claw, pull hair, and when exceptionally PO’d, bite. And if you discipline him, it’s like the world is ending. He’ll fall in a limp pile to the floor and howl.

And then there’s their interests. Leva likes to color to see the colors on the paper, not to draw. She likes to sing. She makes up words and languages. She pretends incessantly and makes up scenarios based on things she’s seen or read about. She dances, but more because she’s pretending to dance like someone or something than because she’s interpreting the music. She will talk to anyone at anytime about anything and will not stop until we step in and intervene. Geert’s the strong silent sort. He likes processes and mechanics. He’s fascinated with trucks and using them as trucks. He likes puzzles and toys with gears and blocks. He dances when he hears music and sings tunes – even as a baby he was soothed by music whereas Leva was not.

And finally, there’s how they each interact with other kids. Now, i know there’s a big age difference here (well, not such a huge difference), and that affects how they interact, but Leva is always out to make a friend. We’ll go to a playground and any child that Leva makes eye contact with will get a smile and an invitation to play. Most kids ignore her. But she just keeps playing, making up names for the kids (like butterfly girl or yellow (shirt) girl) and will call to them and invite them to do whatever she’s doing. After several trials, she’ll usually find a very sweet girl to play with and they’ll go running from slide to slide or jump to jump, squealing and laughing together. It’s so heartwarming to see her find someone like herself that she can have a good time with, even if just for an hour. And usually, they’re nice kids. Not the playground delinquents – you know who they are. Geert is perfectly happy in his own little world. He’ll run and jump and laugh, and is much much more adventurous than Leva ever was at his age, but he’s one of those kids who would probably ignore Leva’s invitations. We’ll see, he’s only 19mos, so I’m sure he’ll become more social in the future, but for now, it’s really funny to watch.

So who knows what this next child will be like? It could be anything! Red hair? Green eyes? Quiet? Loud? At this point, we’re just hoping for a healthy and EASY baby. Geert’s rather worn us out and we could use some sleep. With only five weeks to go or less, we’ll find out soon!

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Tue 12 Jan 2010

Merry Christmas!

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Christmas this year was essentially a repeat of Christmas from last year – we decided not to go into Kansas City due to my hugeness factor and stayed here in Columbus. The two weeks before, we were really regretting our decision. The thought of our kids not spending the holiday with all of their fun cousins was really bringing us down, but now, in retrospect especially, it was the right move. Not only is driving in a car for more than 15min starting to become uncomfortable, if not downright painful, only having four days in which to do the trip would have been exhausting. With my upcoming maternity leave, I don’t have any extra vacation time I could have used, and boy, that’s a lot of travel in four days. In any case, we got to spend Christmas day with the Martins in Springfield and New Years (or our abbreviated version of it at least – i was asleep by 11p) with the Fischers. We’re still trying to figure out how we can see folks next year when travel is easier and perhaps vacations can be longer, but will probably have to wait until 2011 for Christmas with Sara and Ross’s kids at the same time. By that time, we’ll have a five, three, and almost two year old! Hard to fathom! Guess we’ll just have to plan on another beach vacation this summer to see everyone! (Oh, shucks.)

Some pics here: Christmas 2009

 

Sat 19 Dec 2009

First snowman of the season!

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We had our first snow accumulation last night. Very heavy, very wet snow. Perfect for making snowmen and hot chlocate with mishmellows.

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Tue 15 Dec 2009

Leva’s first Christmas concert

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Leva’s first Christmas concert was today, and overall, a raging success. She made it to the front with the rest of the kids, sat between her friends Lucy and Norah, sang some of the words and did some of the hand motions to the songs, and didn’t fall off the risers. Geert also did well, only shrieking through one or two songs, and managing not to bite anyone.

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Watch for Leva waving as she walks up the aisle. On the risers, she’s in the front row, almost right in front of her teacher, Mrs. Gilliam. And yes, that’s Geert crying in the first number.

 

Mon 14 Dec 2009

How to make Christmas cookies, the Fischer way

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Tue 8 Dec 2009

Cucks!

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Geert likes trucks. Very much. We started noticing it a month or two ago when he pointed at every car that drove down the street and said “cuck! CUCK!!” Then a friend brought a rather large one to the playground and Geert was obsessed with it, throwing his usual temper tantrums (which he’s quite proficient at) when taken away from it. He likes to push them, drive them on our legs, eat with them, bathe with them. He’ll still occassionally take a babydoll and bounce and shoosh it before throwing it, or play with some noise-making toy, but it’s nothing to his affinity for cucks. Recently, he’s even shown a preference for truck books and is starting to learn names like crane, bulldozer and dumptruck. Speaking of, this kid’s vocabulary is amazing. Although we don’t quite remember what Leva was saying at 18mos (and thank goodness we have a blog so we can go back and look it up), we’re astounded by what he can communicate, even without the tantrums. He can sing songs with the right tune so we know what he’s singing. He even started stringing two words together last week, and today on the way home from church he said “eat crackers”. Smarty pants. And what a hysterical child – our difficult, temper-tantrum-throwing, food-refusing, skinny, accident-prone, screaming child born with the look of frustration already upon his tiny face, who is such a joy and love and good daddy-wrestler. What a good kid to have around.

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Sat 5 Dec 2009

Scary Santa?

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Today was a great Christmas day – we woke up, leisurely got dressed, and headed over to the North Market. This is a place we should really spend more time. It’s only a few miles away and has the most unbelievable selection of local, organic, and specialty foods. The kind of place where everything, just EVERYTHING is so mouth watering, that you can’t decide what to do and leave with nothing. At least, that’s our way of it. Anyway, there’s a Belgian waffle stand there that actually has authentic waffles, unlike anything I’ve tasted outside of Belgium (where I tasted many), made by this cute skinny Belgian man (who obviously doesn’t eat enough waffles). Wrapped in paper, even the kids can put one of the sticky, sugary, stick-to-the-wax-paper treats away and keep quiet so we can finish our amazing cafe americanos. Today was such a day, and, it just happened, their Christmas festival day! We listened to a little beat band sing carols with a bongo, Geert danced (and ran from the bongo), Leva sang and pulled things off of shelves. We popped back in the van listening to Elf tunes and went to get a tree from our traditional Boy Scout lot. As usual, there were no boy scouts, only very, very cold dads. A younger dad cut the trunk of our tree at a 45degree angle, which was, uh, interesting. We had him re-cut it. They strapped it on the roof of the van and Brad drove us home and right into the garage where the sound of the tree heinously scraping the garage door and roof jolted us out of our merriment and into fits of laughter. But this was a good thing, because it caused us to drive around to park out front, and we ran into our friend Jim Yue who was just then taking his kids to the library to see Santa. The Grandview Santa who arrives in a fire engine, and who we didn’t even know was coming. We hurriedly pulled the kids out of the car and strapped them in the stroller to run over. Now, Leva and Geert have never met Santa, and Leva is just really figuring out this year what and who he is. We got her all in a tizzy on the way over so that when we enter the quiet library, she shouts “Oh Saaaaanta! Where aaaaaaare you!?!” Then she dances around the kids section talking about Santa, his reindeer, how he likes cookies and brings us presents. We go into the room where he’s seated upon his santa-throne, she tells all the other kids about Santa, colors on the way to the throne, and then, when I ask her to come sit on his lap. She’s evasive. She dodges. I catch her to take her over, she starts screaming, Geert starts screaming, and voila! Below you have our precious first picture of the first two kids on an exhausted, defeated Santa’s lap. Nothing like celebrating the season Fischer-style!

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Mon 9 Nov 2009

The Iceman Cometh CHALLENGE

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So this year’s Iceman was a challenge on many fronts. First and foremost, although Brad did do a lot of biking this past summer and fall, he didn’t feel as though he had done as much in the past, and was a bit worried about how his performance would reflect that. Challenge met: he got 10/142 in his category (sport men 34-36) with a rippin’ new personal record. No more whining from Brad, he’s awesome.

Next, we decided to take the children with us. This was a challenge on many fronts – first was the car ride. Neither of our children are good at riding in the car. They don’t nap under any circumstances (weird, I know), are easily restless, and can shriek for over an hour without stopping for air, one trying to outdo the other. Challenge met: we got a roof mount DVD player. It was, admittedly, at an exorbitant cost, both financially and on the brain-cell killing front, but worth every single solitary penny. We’ll have to cut TV out of the kids’ daily routine for the next month to make up for it, but worth every cent. I think Leva watched Sleeping Beauty four times. She’s fascinated with the witch, but that’s a story for a different day.

Second were the sleeping arrangements. Not only do our finicky children not sleep in the car, they don’t sleep well outside of their own beds. The first night we drove to Ann Arbor, arriving at about 8:30pm. All we had to do was enter the hotel room and set up the pack-n-play for Geert to start screaming like he was being attacked by a pack of wild dogs. Bucking and arching, shrieking and screaming, he continued this for an hour and a half. We were on the verge of turning around and going back home (GOBA style), when Brad finally laid him down (out of frustration more than anything) and slid away, leaving G to scream for another agonizing 10 minutes or so, and then – silence. He slept through the night, although Brad and I, rattled, lay awake for most of it. Challenge met: apparently submersion therapy worked for the kid – the next night he shrieked for 2 minutes, and the next night not at all, sleeping through the night on all occasions. Granted he and Leva missed almost all their naps and were painfully sleep deprived as it was, but it was a tangible relief to have 12 hours of quiet through the night.

Third, I decided to drop Brad off at the finish line, see him along the way, AND catch him at the finish line, all this with the kids and me 7 mos pregnant. Challenge met: it’s called a Chariot, folks, and although Geert can spill all the goldfish and pull his sister’s hair, and Leva can kick out the screen, they can NOT undo the buckles on their seatbelts and are captive until I decide to release them. They did remarkably well, but there was many a time I was glad to strap them in that stroller to get to where I needed to go or take a picture without worrying one of them had escaped already.

And last but not least, the eating challenge. Why we have the only two kids in the world who won’t eat anything is beyond me, but, challenge met: graham crackers. All in all, a successful seventh or eighth annual Iceman Challenge, and we had a fantastic time hanging out with friends and family we really don’t get to see enough, and Leva even squeezed in some time at the beach. Brad can’t wait for next year! (I’m not going. No way.)

Pictures here: Iceman

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Tue 3 Nov 2009

October 2009

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Not too much to report here that hasn’t already been said, but we’ve had some fabulous fall weather lately, allowing the kids to really play in the leaves and go trick-or-treating without winter coats on.

Pictures here: October2009

 

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