Big girl bed for the big sister

Look, pictures with me! The problem with always wanting to take pictures is of course, that I am never in them. Jay took these pictures in some gardens in Sonoma.

Anja took her first nap in a big girl bed today, and was really excited about it. Right now she is asleep for her first night in it. We made a big production of talking about the bed over the last few weeks, and then finally buying it and letting her pick out her own sheet set.

She can't wait to have Maija sleep in her room with her now, although I don't think I'm ready for that yet. I think they would do fine since they're both great sleepers, but I love the convenience of having Maija right next to my bed for the nighttime feeding. I barely have to get up to feed her, and I'm not ready to give up that luxury yet.

Anja has really adapted well to having Maija around. She loves being a big sister, and doesn't show any overt signs of jealousy anymore. When Maija cries, Anja tells me I need to go get her, and she shares her toys with her and tries to make her smile.

Before Maija was born, when Anja played pretend games she was usually the "baby." She was the baby lion, or baby dinosaur, etc. Now she is the big sister dinosaur and Maija is the baby dinosaur.

There she goes!

Anja comments:

(Jay bounces a rubber ball on Anja)

Anja: Daddy, don't bounce that ball on me. Don't bounce that ball on Mommy's kid!

Jay: Did you have a good nap?

Anja: Yeah. Mommy came and got me when I was waking up!

Jay: That was pretty nice. You sure have a nice Mommy. She is nice. And pretty. And smart.... And tasty.

Anja: Tas-tee!?? Mommy is not tasty! You can not taste her!

Jay: I was just making a funny joke about Mommy, because she feeds milk to Maija.

(Anja is not impressed)

Anja: Maija is a cupcake!

Me: Mmmm, yummy. Num num num.

Anja: No Mommy! Don't eat her! She's yucky. And she's a baby!

Anja: Mommy, do you remember that poop is yucky?

(upon being given two pieces of tofu, a large and a small one)

Anja: Where's the Mommy and the Baby tofu?

Me: Right there. There is the mommy and there is the baby.

Anja: No! This one (the little one) is the Big Sister tofu and this one (the big one) is the Daddy tofu! Where is the Mommy and Baby tofu???

(Maija cries)

Anja: Mommy, Maija's hungry for you!

Anja's comments

Anja had some comments she wanted posted for the week as well. Lately she simply will not stop talking. Sometimes she runs out of things to say that make sense but keeps talking anyway.

Me: Sigh

Anja: What was that? What was that noise??

Me: I just sighed. Sometimes I do that when I have a lot of work to do.

Anja: Ohhh. Sigh.

Me: Do you have a lot of work to do?

Anja: Yeeaaahhhh. Like yoga. Like Daddy does yoga. And reaches waaay up high. Like a robot! On Dora! (stretches her arms way up high)

Anja: Mommy! What is in that bag?

Me: Cheese.

Anja: Mooooooommmmmeeeeee......

Me: Yes?

Anja: What is that?

Me: What is what?

Anja: In. That. Bag. What is in that bag?

Me: Cheese.

Anja: What is it?

Me: Cheese.

Anja: Mommy! What's that over there? In that bag?!

Me: Still cheese.

Anja: Daddy!

Jay: Yes, hon.

Anja: What did Mommy say?

Jay: Mommy said there is cheese in that bag.

Anja: Cheeeese?

Jay: Yes.

Anja: What is cheeeeese? That is not a WORD! (laughs at her own joke)

sticks and s'mores

First, the update on Maija's first day with a bottle exclusively: Jay was able to get Maija to drink a little from a bottle before I got home on my first day back at work. She still isn't thrilled about it, but she will eventually drink a little very slowly if you work with her for a while. We also discovered that my breast milk has an abundance of an enzyme called lipase, which breaks down milk fat and makes it smell and taste sour, although it is still safe to drink. Usually it takes a while for this to happen, but it happens really quickly if you have too much of the enzyme. This enzyme works even when the milk is frozen, so the milk we were thawing and trying to feed to Maija for the past month tasted really bad to her. No wonder she hated the bottle. The enzyme is neutralized by scalding the milk before freezing, so now we do that and the milk is fine. Hopefully this means more bottle success in the future.

In much more interesting news, we went for a short camping trip this past weekend when Jay had to go to a meeting near Yosemite. The picture above is taken from right near our campsite, which was in a valley surrounded by mountains . It's about a 5.5hr drive from Petaluma. We drove a few hours the first night and stayed in Tahoe, then continued on to the eastern side of the Sierras in the morning. We found traveling with Anja generally pretty easy before Maija was around, but the level of complexity of travel now is definitely much higher.

I was skeptical when Jay said we could/should bring her, but when we were unable to find a dogsitter for our camping weekend we brought the dog along too with the two kids in our small hatchback. And we still brought camping gear, kid gear, and two tents.

We realized as we were driving out of Petaluma that were on our first trip in which were outnumbered by our dependents.

The area was absolutely beautiful. The campground was rustic, with about half the sites right on this cold river. People were pulling trout of it all day and we regretted leaving our fishing poles at home. It was at about 5000' elevation I think.

Both kids took naps in their tents right away, which was unfortunately not an indication of how well they would sleep at night. Anja tossed and turned most of the night, both nights, and Maija wanted to nurse all night. The first night I had to change four poopy diapers before morning and the second night Maija nursed every single hour until sunrise.

Otherwise, Maija was pretty easygoing about the trip, as expected, and Anja's experience was dependent mainly on how well we worked around her sleep schedule each day. She was not a fan of any of the extended trips in the car.

But Anja really had a great time. She liked eating snacks at the picnic table, and running around with one of her many magic wands she found.

Maija is just happy if you're carrying her.

Magic wand!

Here's a little spot at the campground at the river. Anja didn't want to walk very far, but she liked exploring around the river and the bushes nearby.

S'mores were definitely her favorite part of the trip.

I'm cute.

On our way back, we spent the whole day driving through the northern part of Yosemite. For almost every minute of the drive there was at least one baby or dog whining or crying and needing a diaper change, bathroom break, snack or attention. And if two of them were quiet, the third would whine or cry and get the others worked up again. We had to stop a lot, and I spent quite a lot of time feeding Maija.

A popular place for rock climbers, you can see the tiny dots of the climbers on the rock face here. We stopped and watched for a little bit, and had a conversation with Anja about how she can do that if she wants to when she's older. She was really upset that she couldn't do it right now.

Most of the drive looked like this, although it was tough to enjoy it fully with various whining and crying noises much of the time.

It was a great trip, but we did forget one thing on the list.

Back to work

Well, here we are, the night before I go back to work and Maija will not drink from a bottle. Wish Jay luck tomorrow while he's home all day with a sad baby. We've been trying for several weeks now and she just will not take a bottle, so Jay is armed with frozen breastmilk, bottles, cups and medicine droppers. Hopefully one of them will work before I get home in the evening.

Other than bottle woes, life continues to get easier around here. Lately we are putting both kids down for bed at 9pm and they're down for the night (for Maija that means for 7 or 8 hours, for Anja it means 10 or 11 hours). Maija is getting better at taking naps in her crib during the day as well. She is really good at sleeping if we carry her around, so she does get quite a bit of sleep each day, which is nice for everyone.

Maija is getting stronger and really hold her head up well now. We have started putting her in a walker (without wheels, so not really a "walker" I guess) and she seems to like standing in it. She is a very smiley baby, and has started to make a lot of different sounds. Part of the benefit of not using a pacifier is that we see her smile and talk all the time.

Lately Anja likes to tell jokes.

Mostly that means she just makes up a word for something and then laughs about it. But the best joke ever was when were driving over the Mackinac bridge a few weeks ago:

Anja: That's the Golden Gate Bridge

Me: No, this bridge is called the Mackinac Bridge.

Anja: Macki- Mack- Macaroni and Cheese Bridge? This is a macaroni and cheese bridge? (laughs at her own joke)

Also other more recent jokes:

Me: Let me get Maija and then I'll read you a book.

Anja: You're gonna READ MAIJA? Maija is a book?!!

Me: No, Maija is not a book.

Anja: Maija is a book to read. Maija is a tree for climbing. Maija is a ladder. Maija is Boots!

Anja: (stands on one foot) I'm a flingy-mingo!

Anja: I'm a noodle?!! (goes limp in my hands)

My banana is spinny

Anja is beginning to think it's pretty fun to have a little sister around:

Also, this is how dinner goes when her afternoon nap was too short:

Toddler ramblings:

Anja: Daddy! Stop!

Jay: Stop What? Stop talking to Mommy?

Anja: Yeah.

Jay: But we were just discussing important shirt-buying strategies.

Anja: STRAGEDIES!!?? What is STRAGEDIES!!??

Jay: A strategy is a plan for doing something.

Anja: Stratcheteees? Tragedies?

Jay: A tragedy is something terrible.

Anja: Stratcheteee? Stratchaty?

Jay: No, strachety, stracha- stracha-, tragedy. Wait, it's not tragedy. What is it? Strategy?

Anja: Slurp Slurp Slurp! Mmmmmm... that was pretty yummy. That was pretty YUMMY apple juice. THANK you Mommy! What's inside here? What is inside this peanut?

Me: Just more peanut.

Anja: Ohhh. Look. Look. There's nothing inside this peanut! (accidentally eats a piece of cauliflower) Spit spit YUCK. I don't LIKE IT! Ptoooiee. YUCK. Mmmmm peanut butter and jelly. I better check to see if the jelly is yummy (blows out through her nose several times). Mmmm hmmmm. It is yummy! (opens sandwich and eats the jelly out of it with her fingers)

Me: What is your name today?

Anja: I don't know not Anja... maybe some kind of dinosaur.

(after Jay returned from taking both kids to the park and leaving me at home alone for an hour)

Me: Boy, one hour sure goes by quickly.

Jay: That's all that was? Only one hour?

Michigan Trip (now with more awesome)

We have done far too many fun and interesting things in the last few weeks to comment on them all fully, so here is an abridged version:

1. Michigan trip = heroic success

2. Flying on a plane with an infant and toddler to Michigan was easier than driving with them once we were in Michigan

3. Pick blueberries but watch out for ants

4. Anja loves this bobcat

5. Anja loves her cousins

6. Michigan water is warm and doesn't have sharks

7. Miners beach on Lake Superior has bitey flies that are especially attracted to infants and new moms

8. Grandmas are great for holding babies

9. I mean she really likes this bobcat

10. Two weeks of constant attention was just what Anja needed

11. We had a great visit with my grandma who is doing well

12. Anja hid dinosaurs in Grandma's lap and couch and played with every cat toy she could find

13. Also she found deceased cat's ashes on Grandma's shelf and wanted to play with them

14. Having a family camp makes a childhood special

15. Somehow we keep finding fun new places in Marquette like this little island you can get to by wading through shallow water (but not with an infant)

16. This is Levi

17. Sometimes babies cry through the entire service, and then through the whole baptism, and all the way down the hall until fed again, even if they were fed right before the service

18. Anja thinks saunas ("sown-duhs") are okay, but prefers eating pretzels on the camp porch with a stuffed bobcat

19. Jay is Superdad

20. Maija was almost never not in someone's arms for two weeks

21. Dueling scrabble phrases

22. Make sure your kid has cute pajamas because sometimes they wear them until noon

23. Rare event:

24. You cannot pose toddlers but you can try

25. Animals vs trucks

26. "Don't touch my toys again!!!"

27. Ahh... camp

28. Maija is a very smiley baby!

29. She is also incredibly strong and very cute

30. Shadows are popular again

31. Two weeks away from home plus new baby = complete untraining of previously potty-trained toddler (no photo available)

32. Look at my moth!

33. Look my shirt says "Little Finn"

34. If this bobcat were an ice cream flavor, Anja would say it was Supercoolamazing flavor, now with more AWESOME!!!

If you haven't had enough, here's a video of general baby cuteness with smiling and cooing and Anja narrating

And as always, Anja's comments:

(while sitting next to me on a chair)

Anja: I'm all clean with boogers.

Me: You have boogers in your nose?

Anja: No, see?! (shows me her nose)

Me: Okay, good.

Anja: Yeah, I put them on you, see? (shows me my own arm)

Jay: Our neighbors got a new Audi

Anja: Newaudi? What's a Newaudi?

Jay: It's a kind of car.

Anja: Oh. With a face? It can talk?

Jay: No, it just goes really fast.

Anja: Ohhhhhh

Jay: Anja, do you have to go potty?

Anja: No... I'm just going to stay inside and eat butter.