Big Sister and updates

Anja really likes being a big sister. Sometimes she's a little too excited:

Me: Anja, don't put that pacifier in Maija's mouth, she might not like it.

Anja: But she likes it! See?

Me: Yes, that's really nice of you, but you should let her put it in her mouth by herself if she wants to.

Anja: (dejected) Oookayyy.

20 seconds later:

Me: That's really nice of you to help Maija, but you shouldn't put things in her mouth.

Anja: She likes it.

Me: I know, but please don't put anything in the baby's mouth.

10 seconds later:

Me: Anja? Don't put anything in Maija's mouth.

Anja: Look Mommy, she likes it!

Here is Anja playing with Maija by herself:

Some updates about recent events:

-Maija is trying to crawl: She can get her bum up in the air or her head up in the air, but never at the same time.

-Maija rolls up on her side to grab toys and is pretty good with her hands now.

-Anja's language skills are incredible. You have to be careful how you talk around her because she will correct your pronunciation and grammar.

-Maija got her next round of vaccinations without too much trouble.

-We went to the local pumpkin patch where Anja still likes the bounce house more than anything else.

-We started a ten gallon aquarium bug house for Anja. So far we only have a spider, a crane fly, and a bunch of pill bugs.

-We put a ban on any tv for Anja during the week, and after two weeks we've seen a big improvement in behavior. Now the weekends are special "movie days" that we look forward to.

-Anja has a new friend, Ian, a 4 year who lives a couple of houses down. He doesn't usually play with yucky girls, but he's really great with her.

-Anja is going to be Goldbug for halloween (he's the little yellow bug hiding on every page of Richard Scarry's "Car and Trucks and Things that Go". It is going to be awesome. If I have enough energy, I will also make a Lowly the Worm costume for Maija, but I'm not making any promises.

-Anja loves her big girl bed. She bangs into the walls and thrashes around when sleeping but has not yet fallen out.

-I am finding that working from home is a mixed blessing, but overall really good for us as a family. It is very difficult to get anything done at home so I find that on the days I do go in, I'm very stressed about trying to get everything done in time. I am looking forward to going back to work full time in January, although I wish it didn't mean having to put Maija in daycare.

-Maija is a very relaxed kid and generally pretty easy to take care of. She travels pretty well, except that she needs to eat really frequently (I only get about 1.5hrs between feedings still).

-Anja eats the skins of grapes again, instead of peeling them

-Anja is more likely to eat food if in the shape of a face

-Maija's new hair is coming in blonde.

-Anja's new hair is coming in brown.

-Maija smiles when Anja smiles at her but cries if Anja makes a scary face.

And as always, Anja's comments:

Anja: Maija can say lots of words.

Me: Pretty soon she will. She can't really say any words yet.

Anja: Maija can say a couple of words.

Me: Oh yeah? What words can Maija say?

Anja: Aye-ahhh!

Anja: (looking at a picture of a gecko in a book). A gecko in their house! That's silly!

Me: Some people have geckos in their house to eat their bugs. They crawl around on the walls and eat bugs and then they don't have any bugs in their house. Wouldn't that be fun to have a gecko in the house?

Anja: Then we would be sad.

Me: Because we wouldn't have any bugs in the house?

Anja: Yeah.

Me: When I was little like you, I had a Winnie the Pooh doll

Anja: When I was little like you, I growed up. And got big!

Me: That was a loud car.

Anja (thinking I said "That was a lot of car"): No Mommy, not "lot of car", say "lot of CARS!" not "lot of car."

Habbing the gorning

Anja tells a nonsense story with made-up words:

And then creatively retires to her couch office:

Also she would like you to know that her spider is cute and awesome.

Selected quotes:

Anja: What is Blue digging?

Me: She is digging some holes in the yard, where an animal lives. What do you think lives there?

Anja: Maybe... a baby tiger! Or maybe a groundhog. Or a mole. Or a porcupine! Porcupines live down there in the ground.

(then again, later:)

Anja: Maybe a hedgehog! They stick their heads out of the ground!

Anja: What day is today?

Me: Today is Thursday.

Anja: Why can we NOT watch a movie on Thursdays?!!!

Me: Well, Thursdays are not movie days. But tomorrow is Friday, and Fridays are movie days. We can watch a movie tomorrow.

Anja: Ohhhh...

Anja: (holding a crown) This is my crown. I can wear it. On my head. I'm a king.

Me: You're a king?

Anja: Yeah, I'm a king... a king... I'm a kinkajou! I'm a kinkajou and I can jump like this! (jumps around the room). I can jump up high in a tree and grab my crown.

sleep

I'll never understand why kids fight sleep so much:

Right after that video was taken I put Anja in bed for a nap and she fought it the whole way, crying about wanting another piece of toast (after eating lunch for about 45 minutes and passing out in her high chair).

I tried again to get a few pictures of both girls. Anja was excited, and it was her idea to hold hands. She is much more interested in her little sister than I thought she would be, which is fun.

Maija continues to get stronger. To me, this is the really fun time. Those early months are great in many ways, but they are just so hard too. Now we have feeding and sleeping figured out and we have a pretty good rhythm as a family of four. Maija rolled over a few more times (both ways) and is scooting around on her back to look at toys and books. She is getting better at grabbing things, but still just mashes them into her face.

Maija is just so happy. She will always smile if you talk to her. And not just a little grin, more like this:

Anja's comments:

Jay: (pretending not to know Anja is hiding under the couch) What's this under here? Hey look, it's Anja!

Anja: Daddy, leave me alone. I'm working!

Me: Do you have some work to do Anja?

Anja: Yeah, in my office. In my couch office!

Me: Anja, Daddy's home.

Anja: Daddy??!! Yay! I'm so HAPPY! Oh I have to go potty Daddy Daddy I have to gooo poooottteeeeee!!! (runs to door to greet him)

Anja: I want toast with butter! Butter that I can see! Not pretend butter!

(This was a response to our recent mean trick of putting butter on her toast and allowing it to melt so she couldn't see it. Also she means "white butter" and not peanut butter!)

Advances

Anja was pretty excited about getting to "hold" Maija for this picture.

Maija rolled over for the the first time this week, caught on video as seen below (back to front). She rolls up on her side to reach toys now and this time she kept going. Then today she rolled over the other way (front to back), so she's moving right along.

Also in the past week she has suddenly decided she likes spending time on the floor on her back and belly and is getting a lot stronger. She is beginning to push herself along in a belly crawl, and to scoot around the floor on her back. It seems so early to be doing that, but then I can't believe she's already three months old either.

She is making a lot of noises lately. She is just such a happy baby.

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.