January to March other stuff

In other January - March happenings, Josh has cycled through a variety of very intense obsessions.
He learned about Valentine's Day at school and had a lot of fun celebrating all things pink and red and heart-shaped for a week.

He was obsessed with playdough for a while. He's not very confident in his playdough skills, though, so he asks me to make what he wants. And what he wanted was animals. He always asked for the same four animals, all in the same order, and all in the same color scheme. I noticed when I was going through these pictures that he also picked shades specifically going from dark to light every time.

Giving his animal friends a pep talk before the photo shoot.

 

His class went to a theater to see a performance of the book Goodnight Moon. I've never been a big fan of the book as it strikes me as weird (Goodnight nobody? Seriously? That part kind of gives me the willies, actually.) and boring (no offense to those who love it - it just doesn't do anything for me), but he fell in love with it and memorized it that very day.

He went through a Mr. Potato Head phase when he would spend an hour or so every day putting two Mr. Potato Heads together, pulling them apart, and putting them together again exactly the same way and in the same order. And for a while he put the noses below the mouths every single time, even though he accurately identified both parts. Funny kid!

Then they started reading fairy tales at school and he came home with an appetite for Goldilocks and the Three Bears. He memorized the book and determined that I, of course, was Mama Bear, Mario was Papa Bear, Scout was Baby Bear, and he was Goldilocks. One evening he went to bed asking for porridge. I told him he could have some for breakfast. He woke up at 4am desperate for porridge. I told him to go back to sleep because it wasn't time to get up yet. At 5:30am he again begged for porridge. Once again I convinced him to wait. At 6:30, I let him get out of bed and we went downstairs to make some porridge. "Are you excited to eat your porridge?" I asked. "Well," he said, "I want pancakes!" So pancakes it was. He also often describes things in terms of Goldilocks now, as in "Oh, it's too soft! Like Mama Bear!" or "It's just right, like Baby Bear bed!"

They love to steal my SlimFast (knockoff) shakes. Hey, it's protein, right?

He loved the Billy Goats Gruff for about two weeks, but we only have 2 goat-like toy animals and he needed a third. So I taped some paper horns on a donkey and saved the day. Go me.

Chef Josh!

He came home from school with a chef hat one day and wanted to make a special dessert for after dinner, so he made graham crackers with nutella. He still loves to help me bake, but he especially likes to help when he's Chef Josh.

Josh's language is growing in leaps and bounds. His sentence length has tripled since he started school in October. TRIPLED. It's simply amazing. And with his language development has come remarkable social development. When I was trying to get the photos above with his playdough animals, I heard him talking to them and explaining that they shouldn't be scared because Mama was just going to take some pictures and they needed to say "Cheese!", okay? He loves to boss Scout around when he can, and gets endless thrills out of taking things away from her.

One of the other things we've struggled with is Josh's eating. He was a great eater until he was about 1, then he got pretty picky, but not abnormally so (except for his issues with textures, but we'll leave that out of this one). When he broke his leg around 2 years old, he kind of stopped eating everything. The fracture came on the tail of about four months spent in transition, all of which combined to stress him out enough that he cut basically EVERYTHING out of his diet. For about a month, he survived on goldfish, milk, toast, and chocolate chip pancakes in spite of everything we tried. It was bad enough that his speech therapist recommended we enlist the help of an occupational therapist to address his eating. We have slowly (painfully slowly) been climbing out of that hole. As with his speech challenges, I have researched and studied, brainstormed and prayed. And I am so happy to say that he's just a normal 3-year-old eater these days! His favorite lunch currently is a grilled cheese sandwich, strawberries, and steamed broccoli. BROCCOLI!! And he eats what we eat for dinner, most of the time with the help of hefty bribes of the chocolate or motion picture variety, but still! Just the fact that he will put something in his mouth that he doesn't already know he loves is astonishing, given where we started.

Family movie night!

We got the movie Hop (which we first showed Josh a year ago during one of our potty training attempts) around Easter and since then Josh often wants to hear "The Easter Bunny Song," which, unfortunately, is Dynamite by Taoi Cruz. It's not a very good song, but he loves it because it's the song the bunny plays on the drums in the movie. That has opened up his ears, so to speak, and he enjoys listening to my music during the day now. He inexplicably enjoys Bruno Mars and will perk up to listen when he hears an R&B beat.

She watches her brother closely. She's sitting on the potty reading a book, just like Josh. Ha!

Little Scout is also learning in leaps and bounds. She talks up a storm when she's in the mood, and learns a new word almost every day. She's even starting to sing a little, which is fun. She regularly picks steamed vegetables over fruit, bread, and even most desserts when they're available. And she is becoming quite the little Boss Hogg as her language develops, which may not even be her fault as that was my nickname as a child.

We took the kiddos to the Austin Rodeo & Fair a few weeks ago. They had, by a landslide, the most awesome petting zoo I've ever seen. There were goats and sheep of all sizes, deer, llamas, kangaroos (!), and cows. Scout loves animals, but only from about 3 feet away. She's deathly afraid of touching pretty much any kind of animal, so she enjoyed the petting zoo from outside the fence with Mario. Josh, on the other hand, had an absolute ball. He even summoned the courage to actually get on a pony this time, instead of chickening out like he did at the Fairbanks Fair last summer. Twice! And we didn't even tell him to take his hat off, wave it around in a circle, and say "Yeee-haaaaw!"

Yee-haw!!

Both of my children LOVE to color. For a very long time, Josh refused to color. He used to love to finger paint, but he would just spread the paint around, not actually try to paint anything in particular. He didn't like to color at all, or draw. Recently, however, he has taken a great interest in it. He used to ask me to draw animals, then he would look at the drawing for a few seconds and ask me to draw another animal (unsurprisingly, always the same animals and always in the same order). Now he asks me to draw things so he can color them. And then he asks for more. He has run a whole pack of markers dry in the space of three weeks, and let's not talk about the amounts of paper we go through! For a while it was vehicles (race car, bus, boat, truck, and motorcycle), and since he has discovered dinosaurs I'll bet you can guess what I get to draw every day! But the most exciting thing is he will actually try to draw things sometimes now! I sat him down with a piece of paper right next to me. Then I would draw a single line on my paper and ask him to do the same on his paper. Then I would draw the second line on my paper and ask him to make the same line on his paper. It was so exciting I was crying the whole time, like I cried the morning a few weeks ago that I handed him his socks and he just put them on.

In the interest of helping Josh's physical and social development, we signed him up for a gymnastics class about the same time he started school. When we started, he wouldn't do one single activity without the help of his teachers. Then he started doing forward rolls by himself. Then he got some confidence and would try things on his own. This week, he did a four-activity routine all by himself while his teacher was helping someone else on the other side of the gym. Awesome.

January - March

January was quiet. Just same old, same old, except that Mario volunteered (or was involuntarily volunteered) for a bunch of projects at work that really took a toll on his non-working life. It's a good thing he loves his work or we would have all been miserable!

Valentine's Day was pretty quiet. We had a date night scheduled, but Mario got surprised by a deadline that was moved at work and ended up spending his evening at the office. We did enjoy a delightful chocolate souffle cake with a molten ganache center when we got home, though.

Josh and Yaya playing in the snow.

In February, we drove to Salt Lake City for a short visit. We got to visit my brother and sister-in-law in Albuquerque on the way there and on the way home, and in Utah we got to see another brother and his family, plus my aunt, uncle, grandma, mission president, one of my favorite mission companions, my college roommate, and my mom!

 

Isn't she gorgeous?

I also took advantage of the opportunity to take Mario to eat at the Seafood Buffet, the restaurant at Deer Valley Ski Resort that my brothers and I (and many more friends) all worked at after high school. The restaurant was only open at night, so we got to ski all day and then cook (and eat!) delicious food all night! It was a pretty awesome tradition we had in my family, and I think it's very cool that all of us did it at least once. It sure was a trip down memory lane to go back! It was just like I remembered. Favorite dishes of the night were prime rib with garlic mash, roasted baby duck breast with thyme white chocolate sauce, shrimp bisque with lemon creme, sweet peel and eat shrimp, and sprinkled in between savory courses were several chocolate snowballs and a chocolate cherry cheesecake that I still dream about.

The next morning we skied at Deer Valley. My parents are very active people, and we grew up doing as many sports as we possibly could (golf, volleyball, skeet shooting, water skiing and all associated sports where one is towed behind a speed boat, snow skiing, motorcycles, quads, soccer, football, baseball, track, swimming, white water rafting, kayaking, surfing, hiking, running, and biking, just to name a few) . One of those sports was skiing. My Grandpa Josephson taught us all how to ski when we were just little tykes, and we had many awesome family vacations at Big Sky Resort in Montana while we were growing up. Mario had skied a few times, but this was only our second time going together (the first was in Vermont during his first year of law school. It was 7 degrees, poor snow cover, lots of ice, and I was two months pregnant with Josh, which were less-than-ideal conditions, so it wasn't as fun as it could have been.) He did great! By the end of the day he was really getting the hang of it, and we're excited to go again next year, especially to take Josh and Scout!

Not a great picture, I know, but we were too busy skiing to worry about photos!

We spent a day at the Children's Museum in SLC. Josh loved the balls and the water tables, but his favorite part, both of that day and the whole week, was spending time with his cousins and YaYa (my mom).

Little Max.

Putting on a play about turtles and dragons at the Children's Museum.

At the Children's Museum with Ben, Yaya and Kendall.

 I served a mission in Chile Concepcion a decade ago. I was blessed to serve with amazing people who changed my life then, and who by some miracle believe it's worth their energy to keep in touch with me! I've never met anyone who would feel comfortable calling their mission president at the drop of a hat and asking if he'd like to get together for dinner. My mission president is just awesome like that. We had a great evening with Presidente Romney and The Hermana (as we called her), as well as one of my favorite companions, Brittany, and her son.

From the right: Pres. Romney, Sis. Romney, Brittney & Parx, Mario, Josh, Scout and me.

On the way home, we crashed at Scott and Anita's place for the weekend. Albuquerque is a lot of fun, and we had a great time wandering around spending time together and eating. Of course we started the day with a trip to Frontier for breakfast - and if you're ever within any reasonable distance of Albuquerque, do not miss Frontier! - then some Chopsticks for lunch. Also if you're ever within any reasonable distance of Albuquerque and have always wondered what REAL Chinese food tastes like, do not miss Chopsticks! All four of us lived in China for a year. And this is the real deal. Seriously. Then for dinner we sampled some delectable tacos and finished the night in style with fish tacos and carne asada french fries from The Last Call.

It was wonderful to spend time with family and friends, and some great time with my own little family. The kids spent 48 hours in the car to and from Utah, and while it wasn't exactly our easiest 48 hours together, it was a lot of fun when it wasn't horrible.

For Mario's birthday, I signed us up for a team race called Urban Dare. It's a kind of photo scavenger hunt all through downtown Austin. They gave us a list of clues that we had to figure out and then run to to get a picture or perform a dare. I think we ended up running 6 or 7 miles. It was a nice change from our usual dates. Happy birthday, Mario!

A Day in the Life of Scout - January 2013

Scout's day (and mine by extension as it SERIOUSLY pisses her off if Mario goes to get her in the middle of the night or in the morning - a holdover from her nursing days!) usually starts between 6:15am and 7am when she wakes up. The two of us get to snuggle for a few minutes on the couch before it's time to get Josh up to get ready for school (which, as you will read below, she loves to do herself). Until January, she still drank a bottle one to three times a night. When she had her one-year appointment, however, and we found out that she is above the 98th percentile in weight (only 50th in height), her pediatrician recommended we drop all night feedings and water down all her bottles to half strength.  (It

Oh how I love those chubby little legs!

was kind of funny/sad to think we were putting our one-year-old on a diet, and I'll admit I was sorry to see her beautiful, chubby baby thighs go!). It took a week of being up with her in the middle of the night for 1-3 hours trying to help her get back to sleep without a bottle, but since then she sleeps through the night almost every night! Halle-freakin-lujah! It's been just about four years since I've had a decent chance of being able to go to bed at night and actually sleep until morning. It's about darn time!

A rare chance to join Circle Time with Josh at preschool. Heaven!

After we take Josh to school (where Scout would dearly love to stay and play with him!), we run errands or go home to play and have breakfast before her first nap. Her most favorite breakfast is scrambled eggs, yogurt, and grapes (although she did have frozen peas for breakfast this morning. Funny kid!). She prefers to sit on the kitchen counter to eat instead of in her high chair.

Ready to go for a run!

After breakfast, we play. Scout loves the slide in the living room. She adores books, especially ones with animals she knows. Particular favorites are dogs, fish, birds, and elephants. She can say dog and fish and she loves to make elephant noises. Brown Bear, Brown Bear is especially fun. We have an old couch cushion in our living room that we use at the bottom of the slide as a crash pad sometimes, but it has become Scout's reading seat. She'll go pull all the books off the shelves until she finds one she likes, then she'll plop down in her reading spot and peruse contentedly. Or she'll bring the book to me and want me to name everything in it for her. Many, many times in a row.
 
She loves her little grocery cart and regularly steals all the towels (and other random stuff) that she can get her hands on and stashes them in her cart. She's kind of OCD about the towels in particular.
 

After her nap, we pick Josh up from school and usually go do something fun. The kiddos love the Children's Museum, new playgrounds, parks, the library, and the grocery store where they get to snack on pizza or corn dogs from the deli while we shop. She loves to play with my phone at the grocery store, but she regularly gets to my grocery list app and deletes things. I had to stop letting her play while we shop because I would almost always get home and realize I forgot something because she messed with my list.


On those days that we go home after school, Scout loves to do anything and everything Josh is doing. She has earned herself the nickname Scoutzilla (as in Godzilla) for her propensity to walk into the middle of one of Josh's activities and destroy everything in her path. Josh inadvertently taught her how to say "Mine!" and she isn't shy about using it! Sometimes, just to get her point across, she'll grab something and run to the other side of the house, turn around and yell "Mine!" 


"Mine!" wars aside, they usually share pretty well and have a good time together. The older Scout gets, the more interesting Josh finds her. It's not unusual to hear them giggling together about who-knows-what, especially in the car. Josh has also taken an interest in her well-being. If she falls down or starts crying, he'll go pat her on the back and ask her if she's okay. It's adorable.  

She LOVES wearing Josh's rain boots.

 
She goes down for a second nap around the same time as Josh in the afternoons, but only sleeps for about half as long. When I get her up, in the mornings too but especially in the afternoon, the first thing she wants to do is go wake up Josh, and if it's not time for him to get up yet I have to carry her screaming downstairs because she's so devastated. When it finally is time to wake him up, I tell her she can go get Josh. "Josh!!!!" she yells as she races up the stairs (as fast as she can crawl, anyway), pushes his door open, and climbs up on his bed so she can tackle him and "tickle" his neck (which usually turns into more of a random beating all over his head or forceful eye-gouging) to wake him up, screaming excitedly the whole time. I'm sure it's her absolute favorite part of the day. He's surprisingly good-natured about it. I can tell you I sure wouldn't take too kindly to being jumped on and punched in the face as my daily wake-up call, but it makes him laugh.


We usually have an hour or two before Mario gets home, which we often spend at one of the many playgrounds nearby. These two LOVE to ride together in the wagon wherever we're going. The other day they had both had bad naps and were pretty tired. I looked back to see she had snuggled right into his lap and he had rested his head on her. They were both almost asleep. When she's not tired, however, Scout's favorite thing to do in the wagon is antagonize me by standing up while we're moving. She thinks it's downright hilarious, especially while crossing busy streets. Ha. Ha.

What's that, you say? Don't eat the rock?

Silly old lady thinks she can tell me what to do!

All hell breaks loose when Daddy gets home. The minute they hear the door open, they both drop what they're doing and sprint or waddle, respectively, to show him how much they missed him. 


Scout is a strange mix of brass and clingy-ness. And she can sure take a hit. She has no problem throwing herself down the biggest slide she can find at the playground and can certainly hold her own if she's around kids she's familiar with, even much bigger than her, but she is very, very shy around strangers. Like scratch-the-crap-out-of-my-neck shy. Noise of pretty much any kind scares her socks right off. When she gets mad at me (as happens multiple times a day), she runs. Just runs, randomly through the house, as fast as she can, crying and waving her arms. She has the stickiest feet and hands I've ever encountered, no matter how often (or how rarely - I've tried both!) I wash them. Her feet are so sticky she can walk all the way around the house with a DVD stuck to her heel. A DVD! As if it were a scrap of toilet paper.

Flypaper feet.

She loves to build towers. Her most favorite "blocks" are playdough containers and my plastic spice bottles. She's pretty darn good too! She can stack playdough higher than her head.

We taught Scout a few words in sign language around 11 months. One of those words was "more," which sign is made by tapping just the tips of all of your fingers together. Babies aren't so good at that kind of fine motor control and attention to detail, so mine both started saying "more" by clapping. Scout apparently got the idea that clapping at us would get us to do things for her, so for about two months she would boss us around by clapping at us. We almost had to change her nickname from Scout to Duchess.  She would grunt at us to get our attention, then clap very, very imperiously a single time, and point at what she wanted. If it was not delivered immediately, she would stretch out one hand, palm up, and squeal like a very cute little pig until she ran out of breath. 

After a while, she dropped the clapping and moved on to what I call "The Hulk." If she saw something she wanted, she would point at it, then "ask" by flexing her whole body (neck, arms, fingers, everything) and grunting/squealing for a few seconds. It made her look like a body builder flexing, or the Hulk. Now she usually uses words, but if the item she wants is edible she'll just smack her lips at us and then open her mouth expectantly. 

Cup? What for?

She also has the most adorable evil laugh I've ever heard (see above video).


She LOVES to sing. Her favorite is The Wheels on the Bus. And she likes to tell us what part she wants to sing next. She "asks" to sing it by making the wheels motion with her arms. Then she always wants to do the mother verse (sh, sh, sh) next. One of her other favorite songs is one of the first things Josh really loved about preschool - a song called Slippery Fish.

Her other great love is wearing Josh's clothes. Since we try to make kind of a big deal about big boy underwear for the sake of Josh's potty training, she especially likes to wear his underwear and asks me to put them on her anytime she finds them lying around. I'm kind of slow about putting away clean laundry so there is often a pile of clothes on the couch waiting to be folded and put away . . . or pilfered by Scout to be worn or pushed around in her play shopping cart, another favorite. She absolutely hates when I get her dressed, but she loves putting on clothes. I guess she hates when I have the idea of getting her dressed, but if it's her idea it's the most fun game ever. And if Josh is getting dressed, she must get dressed too.

Here she's wearing Josh's underwear and jacket. And how cute is that belly!

She's a great little mimicker - this evening during her bath she kindly found a wet wash cloth and washed as much of me as she could reach (I was not actually bathing with the kids, mind you) while I was washing her. 


Bedtime at our house is probably the most exciting part of the day. Most kids need to wind down for a few minutes before bed, but mine get wild and crazy. I mean WILD AND CRAZY. We try to get ready for bed about half an hour before bed time so they'll have plenty of time to play before it's actually time to sleep. They wrestle, do gymnastics (Scout trying to do a forward roll is one of the cutest things ever), jump, run, yell, and generally wear themselves out. Scout's favorite part is trying to give Josh a good-night kiss, which invariably turns into a giggling wrestling match.

    

Bedtime crazies!