The Thing About Carson…

… is that he is a picky-eater.

… is that he is a horrible medicine-taker.

… is that he can be a somewhat violent sleeper. He tosses, turns, kicks, talks, grunts, and ends up in strange positions.

… is that he can make Kate break out into uncontrollable laughter with just a funny look.

… is that he is indifferent towards our dogs.

… is that he has become a toy and bottle stealer.

… is that he is a mama’s boy during the day, and a daddy’s boy at night.

… is that he calls everyone ‘mama.’

… is that he also has a lot of nicknames: Car-Car, C-Man, Senior C, Little Man, Bubba, Little Dude, Little Boy, etc.

… is that he gets very focused on new objects and will spend a lot of time studying every detail of it.

… is that he gets restless on long car rides.

… is that he is naturally very cautious.

… is that he thinks the worst thing I can do to him is wipe his face after he eats.

… is that he loves Ritz Crackers.

… is that sometimes he loves bath times, but some times the whole experience freaks him out.

… is that he has sensitive skin.

… is that his sky blue eyes are now starting to get an ultra light brown/yellowish circle around the pupil.

… is that he likes to spin my wedding ring around my finger when he is sitting in my lap.

… is that he is already a good dancer. He loves to sway back and forth to music he hears.

… is that he loves to climb on me when I lay on the floor.

… is that he sometimes gets frustrated and cries when he wants to pick up something small from his tray.

… is that he is just not interested in the sippy cup.

… is that he warms up easily to new people, but it takes him a while to warm up to new experiences (like seeing a duck in person for the first time).

… is that he loves the big wooden sticks from the doctor’s office (the ones they use to look in the mouth). He has a private collection that he waves around and chews on.

… is that he loves dumping his blocks out and putting them back in the bucket.

… is that he hasn’t learned volume control. I often think that his screeching could shatter glass!

… is that he minds well.

… is that he freaks out on the park swing, but loves the swing we have at home.

The Thing About Kate, Part 2

 

After talking to my mom and Mark about my first installment of “The Thing About Kate…,” I was reminded that I left off a few of her quirks.

… is that she stashes food in the side of her mouth when I am feeding her. I get into such a groove at meal times — one spoonful for Kate, one spoonful for Carson, etc. — that it sometimes takes me a few spoonfuls before I realize that she suddenly looks like a chipmunk! When she is “caught” she smiles and finally swallows down her mouthful of food.

… is that she loves to swing at the park, but hates the swing we have in the house.

… is that she gets scared at the sound of a lot of people clapping (like after singing Happy Birthday to her).

… is that she will eat anything I put on her high chair tray.

… is that — with the assistance of my mom — she is already addicted to Diet Coke. Okay, well really she just wants to drink whatever I am drinking and we’ve let her have some sips of Diet Coke. Once she gets a few, though, she wants more and more.

… is that most people are surprised that her eyes are not brown when they meet her in person for the first time after only seeing photos of her.

… is that when she laughs she inhales air which makes her sound like a donkey.

Photo Time Capsule

If you are addicted to Flickr like I am, you might think this is as cool as I do.

You can set up a time capsule with Photojojo and have a photo you took a year ago emailed to you. It’s a cool way to enjoy your photos all over again and to see how much your life/your babies have changed in a year. 

Wasted Day

We had a rough night last night and it has resulted in me having a wasted day.

Kate did her normal routine of going to bed at 8 PM, getting up briefly at 10:30 PM, and then up at 2:15 AM to sleep with me. I know, we have returned to some bad bedtime habits lately. However, this time, she didn’t want to go back to sleep with me. She was crawling all over me, talking, etc. So she was up for the day.

What made it especially bad was Carson. He woke up around midnight and just screamed and screamed. It sounded a lot like his constipation crying, but I knew he wasn’t constipated (3 poop diapers that day). Neither Mark nor I could calm him down. At times he acted like he was hurting and other times like he was afraid of something. It was troubling and baffling.

While Mark was holding him on the sofa I noticed he had a big red mark on his back. After examining him we noticed a few on his stomach (along with some tiny red bumps I noticed the day before). Carson’s eyebrows were also puffy and bright pink — another sign of an allergic reaction.

I had not given him any new foods lately and he had been wonderful all day. So we didn’t know what was going on with him. I gave him 1/2 tsp of antihistamine and he finally went to sleep with Mark. Before Mark took him back up stairs, I went up to his room and removed all of the sheets, mattress pad, and blanket to be washed and put on clean sheets.

A while back he had that bad spider bite. To this day we don’t know if he got it at Miss Jennifer’s or in his own room. I’ve never noticed any spiders or bugs in his bed or room, but it makes me wonder.

I am also wondering about our dogs. When we went to Houston last weekend, they went to the kennel. They love going to this particular kennel because they have 5 acres of fenced in wooded land to run wild on. Maggie and Schatzie have been going there for about 5 years now. I am wondering if maybe they brought home mites or something like that, and that is what Carson is reacting to. So, I am giving both dogs a good bath tonight.

Hell, I don’t know. I’m grabbing at straws here. I just don’t know what happened to him last night.

So I got a grand total of 2 hours of sleep last night. After I took the twins to Miss Jennifer’s this morning, I got back in bed for what was suppose to be an hour nap. Umm, yeah, I woke up 4 hours later! I can’t remember the last time I napped that long. Maybe when I was pregnant. The result is that my long list of stuff I wanted to get knocked out today isn’t going to happen. Instead I’ve done my normal list of daily cleaning.

I hate that I wasted the day, but I must have really needed that sleep.

Tomorrow is suppose to be beautiful, so I am taking the kids to the San Gabriel River and Park for some time on the swing and perhaps some new photos. I love that park. It’s where we had our engagement photos taken and also where we had our Rehearsal Dinner.

Playdates, Doc Appointments, Friends & Dolls

• I have been searching the net for a local playgroup that I can take the twins to for a few hours on the days they aren’t at Miss Jennifer’s…with no luck. I would especially like to find a group of twin mom’s but that seems even more difficult. There are several in Austin, but that would be a 40 mile roundtrip commute so it hardly seems worth it to me. I found one web site, but all of the groups were already full or you had to be invited by another member. Has anyone else run into this problem? I think the twins are getting bored on their days at home (I sure am), so I think it would be healthy for all of us to make some new friends.
• I have also decided to sign the twins up for their first swim lessons this summer. The problem is that since their are two of them, both Mark and I need to attend. So that eliminates all of the day classes. They offer one evening class that is 6:30 to 7:30 PM Monday – Thursday for 2 straight weeks at the end of June. But Mark doesn’t get home until 6 and so he would have to rush to get into his swim trunks and we would reschedule dinner. The other issue is the fact that the twins go to bed between 7 and 7:30 now. Ugh.
• Next week is packed full of doc appointments. On Monday they go in for their follow-up with the ENT doc. On Thursday Carson goes in for his follow-up with the eye doc from his tear duct surgery. And, finally, on Friday they both go into the pedi for their 12-month wellness appointment. The receptionist told me that they will be getting a mega dose of shots. That should make for a fun-filled weekend. 🙂
• My good friend Misty has invited me and the twins to her beautiful house during the first week of April. Her hubby will be away and we can have some girl time (plus the twins and her 2 1/2 year old daughter). She has a heated pool, so the twins will experience a pool for the first time. Fellow blogger and old high school pal, Chalna and her 7 month old cutie Colin are coming over to swim with us. Afterwards we will load up all of the kiddos and take them downtown to our hometown’s Azalea District for some springtime photos. I am counting the days!
• Mark has been working his tail off this week. He has traveled the state (by car) for all kinds of hearings and depositions. Looks like he will have another doozie of a law suit just like he did around the time the twins were born last year. He has really been working hard lately.
• Oh, and my good friend and travel buddy Amanda is coming to visit at the end of March. Our birthdays are only a week apart, so we often combine our celebrations. (Umm, like our 19th birthdays in Shreveport when Louisiana still had drinking age at 18. That was a fun time, but not appropriate to post on a family blog!) 🙂

 

• And look at what I found yesterday while cleaning out a box in Carson’s closet. These are dolls and figurines I’ve had my entire life. My mom had them on a cute display shelf when I was a kid. I’ve always held onto them in the hopes of one day putting them in my daughter’s room, but then I completely forgot about them. It was such a rush down Memory Lane when I was unwrapping them. The Disney figurines were bought by my dad on one of our Disney World vacations. The other dolls are from my mom’s European adventures in the early ’80s. She would take little trips and bring me back a doll from the country she had visited. Anyway, I am so glad I found them again. Now I just need to find something pretty to display them on in Kate’s room.

Kate’s Lovie Needs A Name

Here is Kate’s lovie (the new puppy dog toy from my mom). We need a name for her dog, but are drawing a blank. She already has one talking dog (that drives us freakin’ nuts) named Mr. Ruff Ruff. Does anyone have any suggestions for her lovie?

P.S. Kate raised holy hell when I took her puppy away just long enough to take this photo.

The Thing About Kate…

… is that she likes to pick her nose and any other nose within reach.

… is that she calls me “dada.” Then again, she calls everyone dada.

… is that she will do anything possible to sleep with me instead of her crib.

… is that she is a fighter and we think that because of that she was able to survive her final month in the womb.

… is that she is addicted to eating paper in any form.

… is that she would prefer to drink juice instead of formula.

… is that she is an accidental Aquarius. She was due to be born an Aries (like me) and definitely has the personality of an Aries. (P.S. I am not into zodiac stuff, but it’s a recent observation.)

… is that when she takes a very minor tumble she will scream bloody murder until she is distracted by something else. When she takes a serious tumble, she doesn’t make a peep.

… is that she loves our dog Schatzie and has a new stuffed puppy dog that she has fallen in love with. We haven’t named the new toy yet, but she sleeps with it and cuddles with it.

… is that it took her a full year to finally go to Mark. She is just now letting him cuddle and love on her. She has given a whole new definition to mama’s girl.

… is that she travels pretty well.

… is that she doesn’t like wearing socks or shoes.

… is that she is an excellent medicine-taker.

… is that she has her paternal grandmother’s eyes, my feet and hands, her father’s bottom lip and complexion, and her maternal great-grandfather’s ears.

… is that she has been the last to do things for the first time compared to her brother, but she picks it up faster than he does. (Rolling over, crawling, eating solids, etc.)

… is that she loves bath time.

… is that it takes her a while to warm up to new people.

… is that she has too many nicknames: Kater Tater, Kate-Kate, Missy, Missy-Poo, Baby Girl, Little Girl, Diva, Princess, Katie Belle.

… is that she doesn’t care for having her photo taken.

… is that she has always been drawn to music and sounds.