Reading to Porter

Matilda is making up for all the stimulation I am not giving Porter. This reading session was awesome to witness since M knows all the words to this baby faces book that Porter loves. They were both so entertained.

10 Things I Did Instead of Blogging This Week

10. Had a snake dangled over my head.

9. Cheered Porter as he's starting to sit up and mastering control of his hands to grab all the things he's been drooling after for the past month. (No, we didn't actually let him play with the rubber-band ball; we are not quite that neglectful.)

8. Taught M how to hold her own puke bucket (during a very short-lived & mild stomach bug). Long after she stopped puking she would run into the bathroom claiming she needed to "spit" & sit like this with her bucket. Poor thing.

7. Lost one measly pound. I think I might never again reach my pre-baby weight.

6. Went to the preschool "mixer" picnic where some moms congratulated Tim on changing Porter's diaper. Just how low is the bar?

5. Went to the Hollywood farmers market alone with the two kids for the first time. While it seems like a huge feat, it wasn't too bad since we were there so early (7:30am!) and it wasn't crowded yet. To celebrate, M & I shared a maple-bacon scone. Yum. Not helping the cause of number 7.

4. Cleaned one of our bathrooms. This may not seem like news but judging by how filthy the other bathroom still is, the cleaning of a bathroom clearly is a huge undertaking.

3. Accidentally bought Sweet, Salty & Nutty trail mix at Trader Joe's that contained peanut brittle. Lucky for Matilda, I sacrificed and picked all the (delicious) brittle bits out so she wasn't forced into unhealthy snacking habits. (Again, number 7.)

2. Went insane?

Or possibly I just look unhinged while attempting to distract the boy from the fact that he's still in the car.

1. Watched an entire season of Dexter. Season 2, to be specific. As usual, we are so behind "real time" in tv land. It was awesome & totally worth being sleep deprived, I think. I managed to convince Tim to stay up extra late several times (even once until 2 am!). This line item was clearly the biggest deterrent to blogging for me since it occupied my normal kids-in-bed-blogging-window.

Vampire Sister

She's actually sucking his ear. Matilda has some major ear issues. I would say ear pinching is in the top five reasons Porter ever cries, also including (in random order) being in the car seat, being laid on the floor with what he deems inadequate entertainment, being removed from the boob before he's finished, and startling noises.

(She's wearing socks on her hands, for no good reason, and he's in his swaddling blanket ready for bed.)

Social Calendar

Suddenly it seems we have a kid birthday party every weekend. Although today's party, with a superhero theme, was much less terrifying than the last one. It also got more mileage out of the Wonder Woman costume and Porter's superhero inspired onesie, both of which will be too small very soon.

We decided P needed a headband today to accent the look. Tim went with a classic Hulk shirt while I wore my underoos-ish tank.

Instead of your standard bounce house the hosts got an awesome inflatable obstacle course for the villains and heroes to bounce around/clamber over. Porter & I didn't actually slide down this big obstacle, we were just trying to convince Matilda it was fun. She wasn't buying & preferred to just bounce and run.

Here all fingers move in for the cake. M gave me her mango moments after this photo to have her hands free.

When Tim brought home this great Tiny Titans title in the stack of comics for the birthday boy we discovered one character made the issue a perfect present from our gal!

Gag Me with a Spoon

Or possibly a spatula.

Matilda is generally thrilled whenever she's allowed to cram toys into Porter's mouth. Since he's got a ways to go in the hand dexterity department, Porter is always pretty thrilled with her assistance.

Poor Boy

Tim came home tonight, saw these pictures and claims he needs to start staying home to watch out for the boy. Matilda & I had a bit too much fun at Porter's expense today.

For my Christmas List

Pancakes anyone?

The Meaning of School

For two days now Matilda has been asking "what" about everything. What is breakfast? What is purple? What is a box? This morning she asked, "What is school?" I said school is a place to play with your friends and to learn things. She added, "and to eat popsicles!" Sounds like we could massively cut our tuition costs around here by just keeping M home and getting a Costco sized box of popsicles.

Strawberry Flavor

OK, so at this preschool pick-up her face wasn't painted, but her elbows were!

To resolve the sticky situation I let her use the hose to "water the plants" when we got home. Porter was fascinated with the entire operation but screamed bloody murder whenever he somehow ended up in the spray zone. You can't see it great in this photo but he's covered with a fine mist of water - Matilda gets so excited with the hose that she has a hard time remembering where to point it.

Sharing

After a fun trip to the aquarium with her neighbor buddy today. They actually shared this remarkably well, until it got down to the last bits when they were both a bit dodgy & trying to get the last drop for themselves.

BBQ

In honor of missing our annual family beach week in NC we finally checked out a new nearby BBQ place. It was so yummy. What you see here is possibly the best biscuit ever made:

The pork was amazing too, but the biscuit rocked my world. Here I attempt to teach Porter the finer points of good mac and cheese. Tim was more than pleased to learn they had Cheerwine. Porter says, "Full of Good Cheer!"
Watch out Porter, those chubby arms will look even tastier covered with some sauce.

Ticklish

We finally caught a few of Porter's giggles on video. Pretty cute stuff.

Face Painting

I think one of Matilda's favorite parts of school is body painting. She comes home almost everyday with her face done up or an animal painted on her arm. I feel like I want to document them all. Here's the face from Tuesday, as M is about to fall asleep in the car during some post-school errands:

And here she is Friday, charging up on decaf iced coffee after yet another exhausting preschool day:

The only downside is that the paint doesn't wash off completely well around her eyes so the entire next day she'll look like a child beauty pageant participant. I mean I guess that is only a downside if you have a problem with child beauty pageants.

Off the Charts

Porter had his 3 month check up this week. The pediatrician remarked on his size, his happy disposition and his awesome big sister - all is well. P weighed in at 17 lb 12 oz and measured 26 inches, an increase of 3lb and 1.75 inches in the past month. These measurements almost exactly match Matilda's at six months! Porter is at the 97th percentile height for age and is above the 97th for weight. I joked in my post last month about our arm definition but it turns out we are really getting bigger arm muscles from hauling the boy. The problematic part is that since Tim & I both favor carrying him on one side over the other we have very lopsided biceps!