Until
I have more time (and if you can tell me when in the next 20 years or
so that may be, you get a prize!) and can do a separate Day in the Life
posts for Thing 1 and Thing 2, these may have to be Day in the Life of
Angie posts.
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| Rare voluntary personal interaction. |
The
beginning of my day depends on your definition of when a day starts.
Scout still nurses 2-4 times a night, so I get to hang out with her a
few times between midnight and the official start of our day, which
usually begins around 6 or 6:30. Me and Thing 2 get to spend some time
together before Josh joins us anytime between 7 and 10. Sometime after
that we get around to breakfast, which usually consists of pancakes
(with some secret vegetable puree added) with a whole lot of chocolate
chips. I’ve learned to make my pancakes relatively small because Josh
prefers to take one or two bites of each and then move on to the next.
Thus, if I make a batch into 20 little pancakes I get about 30 bites. If
I make the same batch (still with a one-chocolate-chip-per-bite ratio)
into 10 pancakes, apparently it just doesn’t taste the same as the first
bite out of each. Scout gets to clean up the chocolate-free leftovers, a
duty she relishes.
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| Scout poaching chocolate chip pancakes. |
Although
chocolate chip pancakes is the clear breakfast favorite, toast with
cinnamon sugar is a strong contender, followed by random things like
going for a few days where Josh requests ramen soup or apples or
whatever else pops into his head.
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| Ramen soup for breakfast! |
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| Throwing stuff down the stairs |
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| The stairs debris |
Josh
and I get some alone time during Scout’s first nap which we usually
spend running through the house, jumping off the couch, throwing things
(by “things” I mean pretty much anything and everything) over the living
room banister down onto the stairwell. Sometimes we paint, sometimes we
make a batch of bread or cookies or drive matchbox cars through the
kitchen. Mostly we jump off the couch and throw things.
When
Scout gets up, we usually get the heck out of the house. We hit up the
library, make a quick grocery store trip, go to Pioneer Park and ride
the train, or, more recently, Josh rides his Big Wheel to the park!
We’ve been trying to get him to ride a bike, any bike, for a very long
time now. He’s always been too uneasy about it to really give it a shot.
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| Riding the train! |
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| Josh's unusual tan lines from his Croc shoes. He's got spots! |
I
have realized in the past couple months just how visually inclined Josh
is. I got him to eat a hot dog for the first time in months because I
showed him a drawing of a hot dog in one of his favorite books. We’ve
been making great progress in his affection for Scout by reading lots of
books about how wonderful it is to be a big brother. I figured the same
stuff might work for riding a bike. We got an animated movie of a book
called Duck on a Bike. It’s about a brave, silly duck who finds a bike
and decides to ride it. First we watched the movie. Then we watched the
movie sitting on his tricycle in the living room. Then he asked me to
help him ride around the house (a first!). After a few days of this, he
found the courage to get on and ride on the street! Since then, he rides
about a mile a day.
We go out at least once, sometimes twice, either to
a playground half a mile away or to the nearby Chena River (a mile one
way) to throw rocks. When we go to the playground, he likes to swing on
the swings. All of them. He spends a minute or two on each, then moves
on to the next. Scout likes to find big rocks in the gravel and clean
them. With her mouth. Awesome.
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| Baby yoga in preparation for crawling |
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| Advanced moves! |
Scout
has mastered crawling, after a long time getting around quite well
through a mix of baby yoga (see photo) and lunging from her down dog
yoga position. She’s so different from Josh at that age. He was a very
happy, very smiley and content baby, but he rarely laughed. It took
quite an effort to get a giggle out of him. Mia laughs at the drop of a
hat, sometimes literally. She’s not any happier than Josh was, but she
is certainly more vocal about it! She also crawled months before Josh.
We’ve got a bet going that she’s going to walk before Mario starts work
in Texas. Just a few days after she finally put all the pieces of
crawling together (she’s been inch-worming along since she was probably 4
months), she started pulling up on the furniture.
Her
most favorite thing to do has always been to be with Josh. Now that
she’s mobile, she’s more able to get right in his face. Their favorite
thing to do together is definitely to play chase (see video).
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| This is how we roll! |
Josh
is potty-trained!! After my mom’s visit last month, we thought we’d
give it another shot (this was our fourth attempt) so that if he was
ready, we’d all have a few weeks to get used to this new style of life
before we started traveling. We stocked up on Duck Tales videos from the
library (this is Josh’s new addiction, and can I just say they
certainly don’t make cartoons like they used to - all those silly
educational shows can kiss my butt! Duck Tales, woo-oooo! By the way,
does anyone else find it strange that this wildly successful kids’
show’s main protagonist is a rich old “person?” How weird is that?) and
got the movie Hop on redbox. Every time Josh had a success, he got a
piece of chocolate donut and Cheetos or Pringles.
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| Donuts and Pringles! |
|
About a dozen times
through Hop, countless Duck Tales episodes, 18 donuts, 4 cans of
Pringles and 5 days later, he really understood what we were trying to
get him to do, and that was that!
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| Butter on every bite! |
After
our morning activities, we come home to have lunch, which consists of
toast more often than I would like, but we’ve also been making huge
strides in Josh’s food repertoire. He has recently had his first tastes
in a very, very long time of pasta, peaches, broccoli, edamame, rice,
and eggs. He is currently wild about corn, but only if I put a fresh bit
of butter on each and every bite (he enjoys his grilled cheese
sandwiches with a fresh bit of butter on each bite from time to time).
He also has been known to dip anything, and I do mean anything, in
cinnamon sugar. Almost all of those first bites I mentioned above were
coaxed into his mouth only with the help of a little dip in the good
stuff.
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| Enjoying some celery dipped in spilled powdered sugar. Whatever it takes! |
After
afternoon naps, which almost never occur at the same time for both
kids, we entertain ourselves until Mario gets home and then get out for a
while again.
A
few fun things about the kiddos: Josh’s speech delay is on our minds
pretty much all the time, so we decided to use some time on a walk a
little while ago to practice. We were trying to teach him the answers to
“What’s your name?” and “How old are you?” Without fail he would answer
“What’s your name?” correctly the first time, but if we asked him a
second time he would think for a second and then say “Jesus Christ!”
because at the end of his prayers we always say “in the name of . . . “
and he finishes with “Jesus Christ, Amen.” When he heard the operative
word “name” he assumed the answer would be what it is every night!
He
also LOVES to recite his favorite part of the Duck on a Bike book. When
we ask him what he can see, even when we were on airplanes, he would
say “A cow! . . . Hello, cow! . . . moooooooo!” and then proceed to
list, greet, and say the sound of every animal in the book. He always
does it in the same order, every single time. The best part of this is
when he gets to “sheep.” As he can’t say “p” sounds very well, he says
something very akin to “shi*.” He also likes to bless the animals in his
prayers at night, so we often bless the “cows and shi*” here in the
Apreotesi home. It was also a lot of fun and not embarrassing at all
(that’s sarcasm, by the way) to walk around the livestock barns at the
Fairbanks Fair and have Josh say multiple times to every single sheep
and goat (I finally got him to compromise and call the goats
“sheep-goats,” but he was convinced they were all sheep) “HELLO, SHI*!”
Awesome.
Mia
is totally in love with Josh. And with food. Josh doesn’t quite know
what to do with her, although he ignores her much less completely than
he used to. The other day I gave Josh his breakfast of toast with butter
and cinnamon sugar and left the two of them about 10 feet apart playing
contentedly. When I came back less than 30 seconds later, I found Josh
flat on his back with Scout perched on him like a cat, eating his toast
no less. He had the most bewildered look in his eye, like he didn’t know
what exactly had happened, or exactly how mad he should be about it.
I
used to be fairly insulted that Mario was Josh’s favorite parent. I
mean, I made him. I made him from two little cells with my very own
body, gave birth to him, nursed him, and spent every single blessed day
with him. Mario is definitely not Mia’s favorite parent. And now I would
prefer to be insulted. By the end of most days, all I want is for
someone to not be touching me for ten blessed minutes. The little
munchkin must not only be touching me every waking moment, I must hold
her at all times. Her preferred calming habit is to pinch as small a
piece of my skin as she can get between her little fingers and roll it
back and forth. She does this to my neck, arms, legs, and my personal
favorite: while nursing. Truly delightful.
She
is the happiest baby I know, though, as long as I’m holding her. She
has a huge, beautiful smile that she shares with anyone at the slightest
provocation. She is a total chowhound. Mario says that if Mia had a theme song, it would be Hungry Eyes. The only thing I’ve encountered
that she truly hates is pureed peas. They make her dry-heave. I think
it’s a texture thing.
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| Enjoying a chocolate donut stolen from Josh. |
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| Bedtime with Daddy |
One of the traditions we have continued from when Josh was a baby is having Mario put the baby to bed. (And this is no easy feat - I usually have had to pump for an hour every evening for him to have a bottle to give these munchkins!)
This isn't even close to a all-inclusive description of what our days are actually like, but it's the best I can do at the moment - I've got about four months of awesomeness to catch up on!!
The
beginning of my day depends on your definition of when a day starts.
Scout still nurses 2-4 times a night, so I get to hang out with her a
few times between midnight and the official start of our day, which
usually begins around 6 or 6:30. Me and Thing 2 get to spend some time
together before Josh joins us anytime between 7 and 10. Sometime after
that we get around to breakfast, which usually consists of pancakes
(with some secret vegetable puree added) with a whole lot of chocolate
chips. I’ve learned to make my pancakes relatively small because Josh
prefers to take one or two bites of each and then move on to the next.
Thus, if I make a batch into 20 little pancakes I get about 30 bites. If
I make the same batch (still with a one-chocolate-chip-per-bite ratio)
into 10 pancakes, apparently it just doesn’t taste the same as the first
bite out of each. Scout gets to clean up the chocolate-free leftovers, a
duty she relishes. 
Josh
and I get some alone time during Scout’s first nap which we usually
spend running through the house, jumping off the couch, throwing things
(by “things” I mean pretty much anything and everything) over the living
room banister down onto the stairwell. Sometimes we paint, sometimes we
make a batch of bread or cookies or drive matchbox cars through the
kitchen. Mostly we jump off the couch and throw things.
When
Scout gets up, we usually get the heck out of the house. We hit up the
library, make a quick grocery store trip, go to Pioneer Park and ride
the train, or, more recently, Josh rides his Big Wheel to the park!
We’ve been trying to get him to ride a bike, any bike, for a very long
time now. He’s always been too uneasy about it to really give it a shot. 
