404. Gum

They went to bed early for 3 days in a row. But I took William for a bike ride, and he fell asleep a couple blocks into it, so he took a nap. He probably won't be going to bed at 9 tonight.

Andrew's doctor appointment went well. He got 3 shots. He's not even gained a pound, only 12 ounces (21 lbs 13 oz.), almost one, but he's grown an inch in length (height) 28.5 inches and in circumference of his head, 47 1/4.

I went to a toy store and got William a big ball to help with some OT exorcises. I got him some hotwheel track, and a baseball glove and ball, and some beach toys. Diana got the glove and said, "this is what I thought you'd get when we found out I was pregnant!"

Diana said, "what's this in your mouth?" It turned out to be gum in Andrew's mouth. Yikes.

403. Bugs

William fell asleep Monday night, when I drove Aida and Natasia home. He got a good 12 hours sleep. With 6 kids around, Andrew had to be more vocal to get his needs me, but he was more vocal.

When I got home Tuesday night, they were both asleep. It made me sad. Good news--Cliff and Vava are moving two blocks away from us! How amazing can that be?! And he moves in Wednesday!

Andrew prefers regular food to baby food. William really likes to be outside. He says, "bugs," quite a lot.

402. Smack

William said, "Grandma" to Abuela. I want him to speak Spanish. I went over to Virginia and Tim's Saturday morning, so Diana could do her project for her class. She's not going to be taking classes until September, so life is going to get easier till then. It was the first night Diana didn't sleep with us, since we've been 4. William slept from 10-7.

The Irish couple I met Sunday at Virginia's party for the Ecuador v. England in the World Cup, had Holly a 3.8 year old, and Joshua, an 8 month old. They were impressed with Andrew's walking. Holly took a liking to William and they played all day. William fell asleep later, and I went and packed up to come home, and she slapped him awake. She apologized, and kissed to make up, and William planted a kiss smack on her lips, turning his head at the last minute. Cheeky little guy.

401. Twelve Steps

Diana has two more weekends of class, so this father's day, was another tough solo day. I gave the boys a bath, fed them, took them to the park, and then I was pretty much done. I hold off playing a DVD for a as long as I can. Virginia came over, and then went out for lunch, and came back. I didn't feel like going out for a meal. Last meal we went out was with Rich and I spent the whole time chasing William or trying to comfort Andrew.

The following are words William said Sunday: no, eggs, juice, triange, off, up, down, help, chalk, tooth brush, tooth paste, bath, door, push, bug and opse, plus the letters A and J, the names Andrew, baby, Emma, AJ, Vava and a Spanish word, "mas".

William nodded off coming back from the park, but woke up when here. While I was trying to put him down, unsuccessfully, William insisted on milk for himself. His bottle had enough, but he likes to add some more milk for some reason.

Diana called me at work Monday. Andrew took 6 steps. I came home later, and I counted out 12 steps that he took. Amazing.

400. Wow, 400!

I started this blog about 2 years ago, when William was 6 weeks old. Now he's two plus two (26 months, 2 days to be exact) and Andrew is almost 9 months. They a constant joy. When I wake up at 4:30 am, it's not so thrilling, but when I'm awake and he wakes up, he's just so cute. And to see William run towards me in excitement when I come home, well it's such a warm feeling I get.

I got done with jury duty, with not enough time to go to work, but enough time to take William to his second OT services. He did really well.

399. Step

Some notes: They were both asleep at 8:46! I'm sure they will wake in the night. I have jury duty tomorrow. We bought William a potty. We bought a double stroller. Andrew took his first step without holding onto something. Diana thinks his arm wasn't resting on the table, but close to it, 2 days ago. I saw him take a step, unambiguously, without help

398. Cars!

Andrew has another tooth on the bottom, he's no longer a snaggle toothed little baby. Abuela, his favorite, took care of him yesterday while William went to his first movie in the movie theater. He went to see Cars with Aida, Natasia, two of her nieces and Virginia. Diana said he liked it for a half hour, and enjoyed the popcorn. But then he walked around, and eventually fell asleep since it was around his nap time. That's what I thought would happen. Because I went to see my buddhist friends, I missed out on it, and then they didn't come home till 6, so I got to vacuum and read and nap.

Zane and Bridget sent some nice onesies for the boys, so they can dress up in the same thing. Diana has to wash them first, but William insisted on trying his on, and Diana said he looked cute in it.

Andrew dances, he shakes his booty to the music. He's got pincer hands, sometimes he clings to me, and pulls my hair, or pinches my skin.

For breakfast on Sunday William had blueberries, eggs, milk and banana. Andrew had baby cereal with some mango baby food mixed in. The both made me the present of a poopy diaper.

William calls chips "cookies", like he calls milk "juice". Someday we'll be able to correct these things.

Andrew has been able to stand for 20 seconds.

397. Walking

Andrew is on new formula. It's giving him some digestive troubles, but he's a trooper. He was walking last night while holding onto the hem of my shorts, not even with a hand.

Bart suggested he could edit the blog, which is an interesting idea, maybe put it into a book form. On the one hand, that kind of excites me. On the other, I'm afraid at the quality, I think a book needs more consideration than I put into these blog entries. But maybe.

In a vote of no confidence, when William comes to our bed in the morning to snuggle with us, and get some more sleep, he now goes around to Diana's side instead of waking me up.

William spent Thursday with his cousins at their home. Supposedly he didn't like the basement, maybe because it doesn't have a TV. When we were at Di's rented place on 39th Street, he saw a TV and said, "mo mo" I don't think he's saying "More Elmo" now, I think he's just chanting "Elmo Elmo". We're still waiting for more construction of language from him. Di said the boys were slow to talk too, I think it's family thing language delays, but we end up doing OK. Still we might add on an extra private day of speech therapy for William so he has 3 days instead of 2, with the generous offer from my mother. We have to talk to the speech therapist yet, see if she wants to.

396. Cousins

Yesterday was cousins day for Andrew and William. AJ, Emma and Venus came over. Then they saw Will and Bart in the evening, and Di and Wes. Then we picked up Natasia, and she's slept over.

Andrew has gone from requesting two fingers to walk, to walking with the support of only one hand. He's full of life and raring to go. He's really quite cute these days. Andrew is also using things to stand and walk. Andrew has developed an angry cry to express his dissatisfactions.

Of course William is jealous of the attention he gets and continues to grab things away from him and say, "mine," and sometimes is rough with him in an attempt to play.

William has a few non-sense words he's developed that I like. One is "schumm" and the other is "bosch"

395. Andres/Andrew

Diana and I felt sick yesterday, so Abuela helped us out and took Andres home with her.

I call Andres "Andrew" because that's the closest English name to what I take to be a Spanish name. I've only heard of one Andres before, Andres Galaraga, a baseball player. Last night I heard of another one, a German architect who's first name was Andres.

I was giving William a diaper change on Sunday and he was upset about it, and bashed Andrew in the face a few times before I could stop him. A challenging moment for me, when I'm caring for them alone. I'm glad Diana has been taking these Sunday classes, it has given me a window into her experience of caring for them both alone. I took care of William until I went back to work, after Diana went back to work, and that was a mighty challenge. But I haven't done that with the both of them.

I think Diana's not working is one reason Andrew doesn't have an adverse reaction to Abuela. William said, "NO!" and made a pushing away gesture when Abuela came over last night. Andrew wants to be with her, he was crying because she didn't pick him up right away, she put some bags down first.

I took William to the park yesterday. He can climb the ladder without any help. He's going down the slide without help, though he's still reluctant to do the big one alone, that twists around. He likes to get dirty and I let him. He plays with puddles and in the water fountain. He likes to play with sticks and stones. He got very upset when I took him home. He was upset and dropped his stick and I was glad to get rid of it, and that enraged him even further. My back hurt the next day from giving him a shoulder ride, because all the strollers were in Abuelo's car.

394. Opse

Last Sunday morning William slept all night in his bed, and then walked out to play with his cars in the window first, and did not climb in bed with us.

Andrew sticks his tongue out to his left, to touch his new tooth, lower left.

On Monday, I met the extended family at Flushing Meadows Park. William was playing in the sprinklers. I think he had a good day of exploration and playing. Andrew slept, but woke up and did his one man entertainment show of trying to walk and stand. I biked there, and left them when they were leaving to walk back. They go caught in the rain, but declined the car pickup.

William doesn't like Dora so much, or commercials. He's gotten into the cookie monster, and he likes it when I show my "terrible claws" when I act out in reading Where The Wild Things Are. He's been getting into the Sesame Beginnings DVDs. He's gotten a diaper rash for the first time, to my knowledge. Diana thinks that it's cute he goes "opse." He's figured out how to take the screen off the window and climb out onto the fire escape. Not good. We keep the window cracked because of that.

393. Tough Guy

Monday William played with Punjabi speaking children, and on Friday he played with an Gujarati speaking girl at Vleigh Park. William didn't take a nap and with the excitement of AJ, Emma and Venus here for the third day, he fell asleep early, and Andrew fell asleep. Diana went to a movie, and I had one of the easiest times of watching my children alone. Andrew got up, but he went back to bed.

William bumped his head earlier in the week, and Diana took him to the doctor just to be careful. The doctor said it was just superficial, he was OK. The next day he had his shots and blood tests. He didn't cry and seemed interested. The doctor talked to him, and he didn't fuss, and opened his mouth when she asked him to.

392. Confirmation

Natasia's confirmation was a big family event. I got there late with Virginia's help, but before Natasia got here. There was dinner afterwards at one of those meat restaurants, where they come around and give you what you want, all you can eat. William got upset at one point and banged his head in a tantrum, and was crying for a long time. I went and got Diana, William fell asleep. He fell asleep during the service too. He's a very heavy fellow.

Today when I got home, I took William for a ride. Last night he was screaming "No!" in his sleep, and slept rather upset at times, so I felt like treating him to a ride. We went to Alley Pond Park and he played with some Punjabi speaking Hindu American kids.

391. Tooth

Andrew's tooth came in. Lower left.

William was tossing the clothes off the his bed, when his mother was sorting it out. Diana said, "don't be like your father."

William wouldn't go in the bouncy thing, or on the slide at the street fair in Manhattan. I went to pick them up at Aida's. Natasia has her communion tomorrow. Virginia and Tim got back from Hawaii.

390. Weaned

Thursday May 18th was Andrews last breast feeding. He's on the bottle now. Just like William, he and Diana have gradually weaned him from breast milk.

William has been sleeping in his bed longer, not waking up and coming to our bed until the sun is up. Paul came over to watch the Mets beat the Yankees with me, and he went to bed around 8:30. Paul was amazed how Grunty would crawl over to something and hoist himself up.

William said "Emma" when I showed him a picture of her. She was over yesterday, and William wanted to play with her, but she was in a nap when Harry brought her. Aida and Natasia came over. Natasia is doing a running club once a week, and Aida says she's doing really well.

Correction: The Ten Minutes To Bedtime book was given to us by Zane and Bridget, I mistakenly attributed it to my Aunt Di.

389. CMOM

Diana had to write a paper today. Last night she asked if I would take the day off. I have 5 personal days, so I took the day off. Andrew went to Abuela's, and Janet took over after she left for work, as usual. I took William to the Children's Museum of Manhattan. We went to a Wahol exhibit. He identified the dog, "wow wow" and others. There was a class there, getting a lesson. They took photos of you with an Uncle Sam outfit or Superman, or others, but William was somehow very shy at that moment. Second floor was a Dora The Explorer exhibit. I met a woman with a daughter William's age, and another daughter around Andrew's age. She said her daughter did not qualify for speech, but they for her 3 days a week. The exhibits were nothing profound, but it was cool to let the kids run wild, to have so many kids. We went upstairs and there was story time, but William was not into that. He said "triangle" or close to it, when he held up a big triangle. There were buses to fake drive, he had fun with that. Then he said, "juice," which means milk, which means he's hungry. We went to a deli around the corner, that obviously sees lots of children because they gave him water in one of those plastic cups with a straw. He ate fries, slaw and some of my vegetarian ruben sandwich, but not much of the milk I got for him. He was sweet in the high chair for about 10 minutes, but then we was bridling to get out, and stood up. He wandered around. Out on the street he was hard to contain, and I put a new diaper on him in the car. I got a $65 ticket (museum $16, lunch $20=$101). I went to get a new parking spot, because I'd wasted my quarters in what turned out to be a misreading of the sign--what it really said was that the alternate parking applies also to the metered spots, but I read it the other way...opse. We got a spot on Central Park West, and walked down 3 blocks to a park around 84th street, that had a huge sand box, and other interesting areas. Lots of nannies, and mothers. It took me a while to spot a man, and then I saw a few more. The sand box was fun, nobody was picky about their things, and shovels were easy to get unless you tried to steal one from a kids hands, and then an interesting drama unfolded, to see who would enforce justice. Some kids came over to me, a white man, they felt safe, and played with me. At one point, there was so much fighting about a hole, that I made another one, to distract some kids and they just transfered the fight to the new hole. I made a bunch of holes, but it lost energy. William at one point found a cement mixer, which he absolutely would not give up, until the mother/owner asked for it back. A woman shot noisy balloons around, which was attractive to the kids. One kid had a bubbles gun, that William liked to chase the bubbles. The nanny defended the kid from others who tried to snatch his toy. My ebb in energy had me begging Diana to come home, but eventually it was time to head home, and we left. Took 75 minutes to drive home. William slept the whole way. My back hurts. I hope William had a good day. It was good to see Andrew when Janet and Victor brought him back. Diana is happy to have 2 papers turned in, glad to see her brood.

388. Da!

Andrew has a bad case of the momities. He cries when his mother walks away from him. William continues to be jealous, and act on it. William likes to try to make reparations after he's gotten a firm, "no!" which is sweet, but I'd rather he just didn't hurt his brother or make him cry. He is trying the best he can, and is aware of surveillance, and our wish for him to do no harm.

We've been discussing getting more structure in preparation for Diana going back to work in September, and just to get a regular bed time, and reduce and end the use of the bottle for William. With Diana not working, she doesn't have to get up for work, so she has decided to let them stay up with her. But I think another part of her wants them to get into a regular routine. I think also she would like my help at bed time, and with a late bed time and work, I'm just not available. She's asked me to maybe take some time off to make this happen, and I have agreed.

On a sad note, William's godfather, Paul, lost his cat Pumpkin Friday. I was quite sad for Paul in his loss, sad for Pumpkin. Paul has shared a life with him for 16 years.

It's Mother's Day Weekend. I let Diana sleep late.

Andrew says, "da!"

387. Tidal Wave

With Diana's papers and Andrew's new mobility, which require more supervision and comforting of disappointments, the slim margin, the buffer zone has shrunk to nothing, and the tidal wave of demands has eliminated the blog from consideration. Nothing really revolutionary has happened. Last night William pushed Andrew away, shouting, "share,". I suppose you have to misuse a word to learn what it means. I thought I'd taught it to him, when at Virginia's he brought over to Andrew some toys to play with. I said, "good sharing," to William, and he seemed proud of himself. To his world it's either give or keep, and "share" just becomes part of that. Last night he let me read to him the cool book Di gave him for his birthday, called Ten Minutes, and it's about the countdown to bed time. He let me read it to him while he was in his bed, under the covers, and I thought maybe he would let me put him to sleep, but alas, he hoped out of bed, and carried on for a while. I had to get some sleep. William has been exploring more outside our apartment, in the grass, the chains they have to keep people off the grass, the stairs down into the laundry room, the flower beds which he wants to destroy.

386. Ear Infection

Andrew has a ear infection. William is fine. William was good, he was set down fairly easily and looked at some books in the doctor's office, and played with trucks in the waiting room. He played peekaboo with Andrew to make him laugh when he was crying.

I took Andrew and William to the doctor alone because Diana had to mind Emma, AJ and Venus. A fact has evolved-- I can't carry both of them, for very far. William was not to into walking, but he held my hand. I got the prescription sent to the wrong place, and they didn't give me the right bill. Aida was going to help me out, but she didn't get there until after I was finished. I had no expectations.

William went to bed last night at 7. They both woke up in the night. Andrew got up earlier than he usually does. William fell asleep on the coffee table at Abuela's, where Diana had gone to do some laundry. I woke him up when I took him to the doctor. He was upset this morning when I went in to meditate, and when I didn't have time to shower with him. He's sweet. He says goodbye and huged and kissed me.

385. Andrew crawls

Last night, somehow Andrew got 3 feet and pulled himself up onto his walker, to stand up. I was reading in the bedroom and Diana was doing some bottles in the kitchen. She yelled to come out. How did he get there? A combination of lunging and rolling, his only mode of solo locomotion yet. Today he crawled a little bit towards Diana and she said, "maybe that was how he got there."

Last night Diana went out to see another place to hold Natasia's confirmation dinner. So I had William. We went to the park. He likes to climb all over things, but I had a hard time prying out of his hands stuff. You need your hands free to climb. He's running around more. He went to play in the sand by the ball park, and took off his shoes. There was a little doggie he played with and played in the water fountain. I had a hard time keeping him off the ball fields, where adults were playing softball. He walked over to a intersection and he seems to have learned the word "bus". He's in awe of all the cars. I finally convinced him to come back into the park and he played on a big dirt pile. Finally I'd had enough and had to eat some dinner, so I took him home around 8, which he protested and called out "momma".